 A still from Black Swan  | Critic's Rating: **** Cast: Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassil, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, Winona Rider Direction: Darren Aronofsky Genre: Drama Duration: 1 hour 48 minutes Readers Rating: **** |
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Intense psychological thriller which won an Oscar for Best Actress (Natalie Portman)
Story: Ballerina Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) gets the chance of a lifetime when she replaces the aging star (Winona Ryder) as the lead dancer in a new rendition of Swan Lake. But there is a hitch. The maverick director, Thomas (Vincent Cassil) wants to cast her both as the virginal White Swan and the evil Black Swan in his visceral production. Will the obsessive artist be able to break the binds of a constricted upbringing and dig out the darker sides in her psyche to play the two roles to perfection or will she succumb to the pressures?
Movie Review: She may have lost 20 pounds for the role and look intensely fragile, but Natalie Portman is a towering inferno as Nina, the pretty and paranoid ballerina who storms the New York stage like never before. And it isn't the stage alone that becomes a playground for her stormy passions. Backstage too becomes a battleground where illusion and reality blend in horrific measure to create a dark and terrifying concoction of human emotions.
The power of Black Swan lies both in Portman's powerhouse performance and in its metaphysical overtones where the director tries to depict evil and goodness as intrinsic to the human soul. The virginal and sweet Nina, who lives in a pink and purple world (read the White Swan) doesn't take long to metamorphose into a mean and murderous vixen (read the Black Swan) who doesn't think twice before unleashing violence, on herself and on others. And kudos to Portman for flitting so beautifully between the black and white zones, articulating the angst of a tortured soul that journeys between hell and heaven in its search for perfection.
The heart of the film are the sundry relationships that Nina shares with her domineering mother (an excellent Barbara Hershey), her friend and rival (an enigmatic Mila Kunis) and her demanding director (Vincent Cassel). The cinematography of Matthew Libatique creates a beautiful and dangerous world, bringing to life all the demons that plague the artist who battles with her teetering sanity. Blood, broken mirrors, scratched skin, bruised toes, drugs and sleaze are juxtaposed against the aesthete of ballet to create startling images that explode in a climax geared to blow you away.
Just don't miss this magical and metaphorical play of good and evil.
Story: Ballerina Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) gets the chance of a lifetime when she replaces the aging star (Winona Ryder) as the lead dancer in a new rendition of Swan Lake. But there is a hitch. The maverick director, Thomas (Vincent Cassil) wants to cast her both as the virginal White Swan and the evil Black Swan in his visceral production. Will the obsessive artist be able to break the binds of a constricted upbringing and dig out the darker sides in her psyche to play the two roles to perfection or will she succumb to the pressures?
Movie Review: She may have lost 20 pounds for the role and look intensely fragile, but Natalie Portman is a towering inferno as Nina, the pretty and paranoid ballerina who storms the New York stage like never before. And it isn't the stage alone that becomes a playground for her stormy passions. Backstage too becomes a battleground where illusion and reality blend in horrific measure to create a dark and terrifying concoction of human emotions.
The power of Black Swan lies both in Portman's powerhouse performance and in its metaphysical overtones where the director tries to depict evil and goodness as intrinsic to the human soul. The virginal and sweet Nina, who lives in a pink and purple world (read the White Swan) doesn't take long to metamorphose into a mean and murderous vixen (read the Black Swan) who doesn't think twice before unleashing violence, on herself and on others. And kudos to Portman for flitting so beautifully between the black and white zones, articulating the angst of a tortured soul that journeys between hell and heaven in its search for perfection.
The heart of the film are the sundry relationships that Nina shares with her domineering mother (an excellent Barbara Hershey), her friend and rival (an enigmatic Mila Kunis) and her demanding director (Vincent Cassel). The cinematography of Matthew Libatique creates a beautiful and dangerous world, bringing to life all the demons that plague the artist who battles with her teetering sanity. Blood, broken mirrors, scratched skin, bruised toes, drugs and sleaze are juxtaposed against the aesthete of ballet to create startling images that explode in a climax geared to blow you away.
Just don't miss this magical and metaphorical play of good and evil.
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