I saw “The Black Swan” and all I can say is… Ha!
Seriously folks is this a joke? Is this… a joke? I’ll grant you, it was a hysterically funny joke, a steaming pile of hokey goodness. Laughable moments, real laughable moments abound. And I’m pretty sure they aren’t supposed to be there.
So why is everyone taking it so seriously? I feel a little bit like the Emperor’s New Clothes. I think people are being tricked into seeing this film as something with artistic integrity, a serious film about ballet, a psychosexual drama, an innovative achievement. And I’m seeing a film that relies heavily on its visual styling (which I’m not in love with), as it tells a pretty thin story about a ballet dancer’s decent into madness! Ahhh…. Swoon! Surprise!
I should confess first that I don’t love ballet. I have given it the old college try but as a storytelling means, dance isn’t my favorite form. But I respect ballet, and I know enough of the real troubles that ballet dancers have to; not be shocked by things like bulimia, broken toe nails, and mental instability. In fact, I thought they could have come up with some more gruesome toe shots, because ballerina’s feet are typically not all that pretty.
I guess that what really bothers me. The real world of ballet, we’re talking about the upper echelon, it is a physically brutal, mentally exhausting, and unstable place to be. I’ve seen, read, and heard really heart wrenching tales of people climb to the top in the world of dance. It’s not as though, the material wasn’t ripe… but the handling. So over the top campy!
Natalie Portman wander through the film looking as if she were on the verge of tears the entire time. Oh life is so hard for poor Nina (Natalie)! She is the victim of everything and everyone! With her timid voice, her constant whimpering, and trembling on the verge of tears… I just wanted slap her. I really did. Oh mommy’s being creepy and undressing again, oh no the director is forcing himself me again, oh now the young ballet dancer is coming on me again… I’m going to whimper and cry and scratch myself!
The big duality of the film, can Nina play the virgin swan and the whore swan? Literally one of her directions from her director is to go home and “touch herself”. Which she does and then realizes her mother is in the room. Which… her mom is standing constant vigil; I would think that when Nina wakes up she doesn’t just assume that her mother is going to be there. And wow, that’s deep territory women being broken down in the two categories of the virgin and the whore.
I’m going to give it to the Black Swan that the sex scenes are… well, different. Wait I can’t tell if I’ve giving them too much credit or too little. I want to point out that in the past, even the not too distant past, the image of a woman climaxing in masturbation or from cunnilingus would be enough to stick a movie with a NC-17 label. So bravo getting that through censorship. It’s such a weird system on how they judge and rate movies.
And for a film about ballet, and for someone who doesn’t particularly love dance, I was disappointed that there wasn’t more actual ballet in the film. Hear me out, the people in the film are eating, sleeping and breathing ballet… they live for it, they die for it, I thought it might be nice to see some actual high quality passionate dance that showed me why it worth living for, why it was worth dying for. I feel the film fails at conveying the passion of ballet. And if the only emotion that Nina has is wimpy terror, being on the verge of crying at all points of the film, I'm sure a prima ballerina could handle that. And maybe the dancing would be more exciting.
And then there is the back and forth, is she hallucinating, is this reality, just gets old quick. And laughable too. Maybe if it didn’t feel like over the top camp, some of the hallucination tricks would work. Maybe if I wasn’t routing for Nina to die and be ut out of her misery I’d feel differently. Even the big climax of the film didn’t feel all that climactic. And pet peeve, if you’ve seen the trailer, you have seen all of the best shots in the movie. There weren’t a whole lot of new stunning images.
I cannot believe this is a film people are raving about, I cannot believe it will win awards. It’s a terrible campy cheese fest. And I would think that years from now people will wonder what the fuss was about.
Blegh!
But I understand that I am in the vast minority of people who feel this way. I didn’t see art, or anything too psychologically disturbing, Twilight all over.
The worst thing is I love an older movie also called The Black Swan which is about pirates, and stars Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara. So I'll be clarifying which movie I liked for years to come.
