Kevin's Watch

Okay, let us get the sensationalistic stuff out of the way first: In this movie the characters played by Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis have sex. Let us think about that for a moment or two shall we?


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Got your attention now? Good. Black Swan is set in the world of ballet, with Portman as a prima ballerina who may be going insane. Maybe. The trailer looks amazing. See for yourself: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jaI1XOB-bs Be warned, that last bit is a tad...disturbing.

I am now officially jazzed about this flick.

Looks good. I'll have to check it out.

Mila Kunis....was she in The Book Of Eli?

Finally saw this. I have got to see 3 of the 4 movies I really wanted to see (King’s Speech, Tron Legacy, and Black Swan – only True Grit to go…).
I knew little of this but the basics. And I am glad I didn’t know more. It would have taken some of the ‘punch’ out of it. Some people may need to be forewarned of the style and content of the movie, because it is quite different/weird and jarring in many parts, and it barely lets up.
This is a movie that takes “The Red Shoes” and mixes it with a healthy dose of “Carrie”. I’m not being flippant here; there are very real parallels with these two movies. The comparison with “The Red Shoes” is obvious, and many of the characters and situations are similar, but “Black Swan” takes it in a totally different manner: very dark and oppressive, horrifying yet beautiful, weird and nightmarish … I recall the feeling I got with the 20 minute dance sequence in “Red Shoes”… it’s what I kinda felt during almost the whole of “Black Swan”: disturbed and yet exhilarated. Too often modern movies only strive to ‘disturb’ for shock value, and I personally find that empty and a waste of my time. It was not so here.
The movie “Carrie” came to mind not just because of the oppressive mother (for whom ballet was religion), but also because of Nina (Natalie Portman’s character), a girl who is a frail, shy, loner wallflower in the ballet world, and is undergoing a transformation in to a very (self) destructive woman. The one thing in watching this thaty you have to keep in mind, or at the very least, when reviewing in one’s mind after the credits come up, is that Nina is a very disturbed young woman. She has serious mental issues long before the movie starts. Her obsessive scratching is part of this. And it’s only her sense of ‘control’ over herself which keeps her madness in check. Yet, ironically it is that control that also inhibits her from dancing the part of the Black Swan in Swan Lake. Only when she finally relaxes, “let’s go”, does she get in touch with that darker side of herself (which, arguably always existed in her), does she manage to dance the darker part perfectly! During this slow transformation her ‘visions’ become worse, more violent and disturbing. With fully tapping in to her darker self, or more accurately, allowing it to come out unhindered, she is the perfect Black Swan, but in doing so, (yes, just like the ballet) ends up destroying the White Swan.

I could go on and on about this movie, I like it more and more that I think about it, allowing the various pieces to slide in to place. All the actors did a great job, and Aronofsky handled it really well, teetering on that knife’s edge of art and story-telling barely keeping it from falling into a disaster of a movie of excesses. But manage it he did.
An exuberant 9out of 10 from me.

I only read half of your comments, cause I really want to see this-I've been waiting a long time to see this incredibly smart woman finally put her talents to serious use. I'm sure someone else could point out other efforts, but her Star Wars performance shut Portman down for me, for a good long while.

I havent seen Black Swan yet, Ill probably wait for ppv, but up to now The Professional is still my favorite role of hers.

wish to see this movie very much.

Mr. Broken wrote:I havent seen Black Swan yet, Ill probably wait for ppv, but up to now The Professional is still my favorite role of hers.

Same here, although V For Vendetta approached the same realm.

I just got back from this, and I had two reactions.

First, that I've finally seen an Aranofsky film I enjoyed.

Second, I didn't know that Portman could act that well!

Other than that, I agree with Usivius. It's a great film.

Great film! Actually felt more like a horror flick than a drama. Portman was amazing! Great to see what she can do when working with a real director and good script.

LOL now you know why i kinda related it to 'Carrie'...

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!

Fist and Faith wrote:Am I the only person who can't stand this movie?!? !

You're just weird, Fist.

julie researched Natalie Portman - her personal life is more compelling than what she does on screen.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Portman

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.

Hiro wrote: I loved 'Pi'

That would explain why our reactions are so different. I couldn't stand Pi.

It's a good thing there's room in the world for multiple points of view, otherwise we'd have to descend into a flamewar over this

I didn't like the movie boring I found.

I saw this movie a few weeks ago, and just loved it. I kinda saw the ending coming a while back, but it was executed beautifully. Creepy as all hell, and it stuck with me for several days after, which is more than you can expect from most films.

Fist and Faith wrote:Am I the only person who can't stand this movie?!?

No. It was horrible. Even worse ... it was boring. Oh, and it had a lot of ballet in it. Jesus, why did I rent this?

This movie was one long gimmick. Instead of character development, it had a series of trippy scenes with the sole purpose of mirroring the ballet story (Swan Lake) with a horror/thiller twist ending. That's it. No explanation for why this girl has been going crazy for a long time--it's not necessary to the purpose of this one-trick pony. All you need to know is that she's going crazy, so that the director can include a lot of bullshit, batshit-crazy scenes with the purpose of blurring the line between the ballet and the movie. "Become the swan." Oh, he means that literally. Why? Because it would be "cool" and "trippy."

No, it was not.

And the lesbian scene wasn't even real. Rip off.

I feel like less of a man just for clicking.