Fist and Faith wrote:Am I the only person who can't stand this movie?!?
A guy I work with has a pirated copy, and I left the room to do other stuff before the end. I just didn't care. I asked how it turned out, mildly curious if it was a Fight Club kinda thing. But I wasn't all that concerned.
Although a big WOOT for the hot lesbian scene!
Certainly not the only one.
Good points first; the editing of the club scene rocked. Some other spatial cuts, from one location to the next, were nice as well.
The finale, with the Black Swan itself was a relief, finally some poise and grace and force. Perhaps this was a calculated effect, after looking at a neurotic main character for the entire film that the transformation was so dramatic?
Then, some other points. While I know how friggin' difficult it is to make a film. Because this one has earned so much praise, I feel the need to put things a little bit in perspective here.
So, excuse my rant...ahem:
What an utterly superficial film, devoid of any subtext or development or imagination. There is no dynamism of any kind in a film that amplifies itself on all levels: BIG CLOSE UP. BIG SOUND EFFECT. LOUD MUSIC. BOOH-BIG SHOCK EFFECT. BIG NEUROTIC ACTING / EMOTING.
Paint by numbers screenplay bludgeoned on the screen by a director who either, - doesn't trust his audience, - or feels really insecure, otherwise I cannot understand how you concoct such a piece of work. What was he trying to do? Mix Argento with the Dardenne brothers? And if so, WHY? With such a framework, I cannot blame the actors.
And the dancing and choreography were just not very good. What was so new and radical about this interpretation? How can I take a director / choreographer seriously when he transposes the flapping of a swan's wing *literally* to a dancer waving her arms up and down. That seems lazy to me, because it doesn't reveal much thought of how to translate dramatically the behavior of a swan to a dancer.
The 'direction' of the dance scenes, the handheld camera weaving amongst the performer(s) served to obscure the movements even further. I loved 'Pi', since then, I don't see a lot of development in Darren Aronofsky. Because of his continued reliance on close ups and hammering his points down, I don't get a sense that his staging is improving. It is always obvious and on the nose and predictable. 'The Social Network' was an hermetic film as well, but David Fincher continues to stretch his abilities, and while the case can be made that '...Network' is primarily a talking heads film, there is a lot of tension below the surface. In 'Black Swan' there is none.
Film can do, show and be so much more.
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