Black Swan - What A Pain!

(2010) ★★★☆☆

'Black Swan' is a pretty heavy thing to take. It involves delusion, desperation, depression and dances to self-destruction. In the film, again, like what happens to 'The Wrestler', the director Darren Aronofsky's previous work, a professional is being destroyed by her profession. It's a cold bleak story, absolutely. The only thing that seems to shine is Natalie Portman's stunning performance as Nina, an imperfect ballerina suffering from her desire to be perfect.

I don't know what happens in Tchaikovsky's 'Swan Lake', but we are told by Nina's teacher Thomas (Vincent Cassel) that a girl is cast a spell and turned into a white swan because of her love for a Prince, then later, when she's about to win the Prince's love, she's attacked by a black swan that's jealous of her. And the tragedy ends with the white swan killing herself. In the film, Nina has to be the white swan as well as the black. She seems to be caught up in weird relationships and spooky desires. Does she have feelings for her teacher? Is she just trying to seduce him so as to better fit in her role? Is she a lesbian? Does her mother see her as a daughter or... a partner? Well...no idea, but one thing for sure, she's seeing things. She's digging up the evil side of her. She's going insane.

We all have two sides, like a coin or everything does. I'm not talking about philosophy here. It's, on the contrary, some sort of experience we have in everyday life, like there's something you don't need, but still you want to have it; like there's someone you want to help, but you're afraid you may get hurt by helping him; like you want to be free, but you lack courage...etc. We're all freaky like the movie itself. We're all struggling inside like Nina. What a pain!

I really don't know how to appreciate ballets. No idea why they all have to stand on their toes to look good? I don't quite like films like this either, because it offers nothing but a hopeless, bad feeling. It's, however, not a lousy movie, because it'd at least make the dark side of you quiver.