Black Swan

My first reaction to Black Swan was dark, cryptic and spectacular (not necessary in that order!).

According to me, the movie is about dark human psyche. It explores pain at various levels. Its explores sadism and narcissim in one single character, Nina (played so wonder-fu*king-fully by Natalie Portman). The physical pain that is induced by dancing is beautifully merged with the physical pain that Nina inflicts on herself. The character of her highly sexual and provocative rival Mila Kunis is shown to be sort of her alter ego which is dying to confront her "virginal" self.

A whole lot of things in the movie are interestingly open-ended. The character of the ballet teacher, the sex scene between Natalie and Mila, mother's existence, Natalie's "black" version and the movie obviously ends on an open-ended scene where you dont really know if Nina has actually died...The last scene reminds me of the spinning top in Inception's last scene.

This movie is actually like a dream book for any English literature student..hehe. There is just sooo much analysis that can be done which is all too personal, different for everyone. Well, I would say, must watch the movie! And figure it for yourself.

PS: What amazes me is some of the stuff I read on Guardian.co.uk/Films about the movie. Its totally cool to have a zillion different perspectives for the movie but how can you analyze the movie at a literal level. Its so fucking obvious that a majority of the things in the movie are pretty metaphoric and symbolic.

Again, a lot of people are talking about how the movie has not done justice to the ballet world and more sadly about how Natalie Portman's dancing skills are not upto the mark.!!! Thats the silliest of things to talk about. Anyways! One of the best write-ups about Natalie's character Nina is in NYT. Read it here.