Review: Black Swan

"And seeing the mum at the finale applauding & smiling made me think "ok so 5mins before she was trying to prevent her from leaving but now is proud mum?".
Which suggested to me the entire mum issue was yet another result of Nina being loopy."

Having just watched it again, it's pretty obvious to me at least that the mum is a borderline personality wreck. That would actually fit perfectly into this film because people with BPD see things in extreme black and white, good and bad. Her reaction to the cake rejection when she goes to throw the whole thing in the bin, the control and obsession over her daughter, perfectionism and keeping away other people is all classic BPD behaviour. In all likelihood, Nina smashing her hand in a door and then walking out would cause the mother to reject her and it's extremely unlikely she would then go to the show. I imagine that would be a fantasy, which brings up the question, how in the blue hell are you supposed to be able to distinguish between fantasy and reality?

I will say I found the bluray a little disappointing. The convertion isn't the highest quality and it isn't helped by large parts of the film being so dark. The club scene in particular I found near impossible to track.

I finally saw this last night and thought the final third was fantastic. It's a 4 star for me as I wasn't totally taken in by the first third.

It was a little difficult to interpret exactly what was 'real' and what she was imagining, but for me the mother was the cause of it - just look at her when she talks about having to give up her own career - she forced Nina to live in a bubble, her life was suffocating, maddening, but the role forces her to burst out of that, and she clearly can't cope.

Needed more Winona.

The whole lesbian angle was overplayed,yet effective, I thought. A device which tricked a million 18-25 year old males (the audience least likely to watch a movie about ballerinas) into the theatre. Then something amazing happened, at some point in the film, every single one of those suckers realised they were watching something very deep and artful, and they liked it. Worth every minute, jitters included.

Visual effects reel for Black Swan showing a bit of how.
Don't watch if you haven't seen, major spoilers.

Watched it last night, absolutely loved it, unlike the neds behind me who called it "pure pish".
I agree about the mirrors Ali, the whole way through the film they kept catching my eye - not just the obvious times.
It creeped me out, there's no denying that, and the whole movie made me laugh, shriek and brought a tear to my eye.

I'd never noticed that Kunis and Portman have similar features before, I loved how in the club, it got harder and harder to tell who was who until the eyes started giving it away.

Every twist and turn at the end; excellent.
I'll watch this again, definitely.

I understand both of your points...I think. It is way past my bedtime and I may be loopy myself, but I think I get what you're saying.

I guess my point -- if I may take the opportunity to try to straighten out my last rambling post -- is that, the way I view the movie, Nina had been "losing her sanity through the pressure of striving for perfection" her whole life. She wasn't born bat-shit bonkers, the pressure from the mother and from herself to be the dancer she (the mother) never was --and the life that came from it (read: NO friends outside of her mother)-- had been making her loony from the time she could lace up her ballet shoes.
So, yes, being named the lead in Swan Lake wasn't the starting point of her descent into madness, but it's the role she's been preparing, sacrificing and driving herself mad for her whole life...

...and then she's told that she's, in a way, 'too good' to be a great White and Black Swan. That's when the real craziness that we see begins.
---
I'm not going to pretend to have any clue about what was supposed to be real and what was in Nina's mind. I think my head would explode if I even thought about it for more than 10 consecutive seconds.

Completely see your point T, but as Nick says - she was already unbalanced so I didn't get that having the star role was any great trauma as she was misfiring already.
And seeing the mum at the finale applauding & smiling made me think "ok so 5mins before she was trying to prevent her from leaving but now is proud mum?".
Which suggested to me the entire mum issue was yet another result of Nina being loopy.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it and it stands head & shoulders above most of the crap being released.
Maybe I was expecting more from Aranofsky, don't know.
But the trials & tribulations of somebody mentally ill didn't grab me as much as somebody losing their sanity through the pressure of striving for perfection etc.

Good but could have been better, but that's just me.

Sodding internet connection double posting me.

Actually I'll just use this to say that Winona getting all stabby in the hospital is something I'd really quite like to forget.

Edited at 03:35 on 26/01/11

Yep I get all that and it's clear there were pressures on her way before that, but the film isn't called Nina's Crazy Life Before Swan Lake.
The whole point of the film was "Here's this girl, this is the role she's been waiting for and it's going to kill her" By planting the idea that she's already mental before this even bigger stressor in introduced, you damage the idea that this role of duality is a proper mindfuck. If you start with someone sane, not only have you got a proper introduction but you've got a starting point to fall from and it's more effecting. It's difficult to care when you look at her and think "Well she was losing her mind anyway, we didn't even need the ballet"

Hmm, if I'm reading you two right, Nick and Goaty, you both seem to think that the lack of backstory/"reason" for Nina's breakdown -- or not showing her before her breakdown -- makes you not care about her as much as you would like to, correct?
(If I'm incorrect, then disregard all that follows)

Well, I think you're supposed to use a little bit of your imagination to fill in the blanks as to the backstory, and the reason(s) for the breakdown should be apparent, I think, to anyone who's ever known or read about a young athlete/dancer/actor/whatever that's been pushed into some particular field -- in this case, ballet -- by a wacko parent trying to live out their dreams vicariously through their kid. (The Barbara Hershey character may not have been "over-bearing" in a demonstrative way, but she was the textbook definition of "passive-agressive" in my opinion.)

There are plenty of examples of parents pushing their kids to the brink:
Joe Jackson (Michael Jackson)
Marv Marinovich (father of Todd Marinovich - American football player. Look him up, he went WAY off the deep end.)
Kit Culkin (MacCaulay's dad)
Every Russian gymnast's parent ever
To name a few

So while those examples I listed didn't go quite as bonkers as Nina, I think a parallel can definitely be drawn. The reasons for Nina's 1.) interest in ballet, and 2.) maddening strive for perfection, to me at least, all go traced back to her mother's wants for herself/Nina. (I don't remember the exact context of the quote, but there's a moment when the mother is giving advice about not making the same mistakes she did in her career, and Nina says, rather catty, "What career?" and the mom looks absolutely devastated. Definite sign to me that the mother was somewhat delusional, too.)

That was it's major problem, the lack of progression. It could be intentional just because you're supposed to question what you're seeing and seeing previous normality would ruin that but really I was quite annoyed because it takes so much away from the descent in madness, which was the entire bloody point.

Don't get the love for this film.
It's good, but nowhere near as good as Aranofsky's other work. I think, as Nick says, it starts with a character that is already mental without giving any clues or hints.
So the film is just following Portman as she descends ever more into mental illness, no real "Well that's a shame/shocking/tragedy" as you've landed in mid-breakdown at the very start.

Performances were excellent, direction was good minus his usual visual trickery for the most part.
Just felt like watching a performance rather than a character, didn't give a damn about her at any point whatsoever as it was made absolutely clear she had problems from the very beginning.

Whereas with Requiem For A Dream, The Wrestler & The Fountain - all those characters start from a position of sympathy and you understand them before it all goes to hell, it's painful to watch Jared Leto disintegrate the deeper he gets into his situation because you've seen him in love and caring. Mickey Rourke is a broken man, shambling from pillar to post trying to make up for his past and Wolverine will do anything to not let his love go forever.

Nathalie Portman?
Starts mental on a train, ends mental on a stage.
The bits inbetween are interesting and well-staged, but just that. Staged. Didn't feel at any point like a real person, because you never see her before the madness descends.
"Oh she's pulling feathers from her shoulder"
"Oh she's peeling skin off her hand"
"Oh she's thinking she's a black swan"
"Oh it's over...was any of that supposed to be real?"

Nicholson going mental in The Shining - at least it was a build-up, you saw him falling apart and the effect it had until he was finally loopy and hunting in a hedge-maze. You've seen his character arc from normal to maniac.
Portman?
Starts mental, gets worse, ends more mental.
No sympathy or understanding.

I found myself feeling bad for the mother. Didn't seem to be over-bearing to me, just protective. And maybe none of her anger was real, you're never shown before so you've got no basis to judge.

3/5 for the acting & direction, music & costumes.
But it was watching Portman and going "She's learned a lot of ballet for this role hasn't she?, that's cool" instead of "Wow, Nina is really collapsing under the pressure, poor girl".

It's difficult to tell what's real in a film viewed from the point of someone psychotic but my interpretation of Lily was she did actually exist.
My only real issue with Black Swan is the same problem I had with Revolutionary Road. I didn't like how both films jumped in at the start with a pre-existing problem but at least RR backstoried it. In this case, Nina is clearly psychotic from the very start and probably some time before, which takes away the potentecy of the role to drive her mad.
Now the reason I loved it and why I called it Darth Swan was the ending. If you can imagine Star Wars episode 3 and the creation of Vader as directed by someone who isn't an artless monkey, it'd be something like when the Black Swan finally takes over in the dressing room. Epic scene when you see Portmans face, full on crazy-eyes, full of arrogance and it's clear that the white swan is dead.

I wasn't really able to enjoy this one because I made the mistake of taking my mum to watch it with me.

"Oh, I love that Natalie Portman!" she said. "And this movie has been getting great reviews," she said.
"Okay, ma, let's go."

Two hours later, about the time Mila Kunis had a mouthful of Natalie Portman's snatch, I was hoping and praying my mother had suddeny been stricken blind.

I'm 27 years old and yes, it's still awkward to see a sex scene with dear old mum in the room. It always will be.