BlackSwan

Black Swan (2010)

You know it isn’t very often that I get to review an Oscar nominated movie for the site. Don’t get me wrong I do love my drive-in and exploitation flicks, but watching and reviewing Black Swan was a nice change of pace. After watching the movie I can honestly say that I totally understand why it’s star, Natalie Portman, won the Oscar for her performance, but that is about all that I know for sure. More on that later now lets get to the plot synopsis.

Portman plays a ballerina named Nina. While she is a gifted dancer she lacks the passion and is considered too mechanical by the director to be considered for the lead in their latest production of Swan Lake. But after she unintentionally shows him a darker side Nina is given the lead. But the director keeps pushing her to get more into the duality of the role. She is fine as the virginal white swan, but he wants her to channel a darker side of herself to play the black swan. This is the key to most of the movie’s narrative as we follow Nina’s journey towards getting in touch with her “inner” black swan.

Now let me take a moment here to explain my earlier comment about not “knowing for sure”. This is the kind of movie that takes a day or so to really matriculate thru your brain. We are living the story thru the Nina character and that apparently includes experiencing some rather jarring hallucinations. Then again while some are events are later shown to be Nina’s interpretations of reality rather then what has transpired some things aren’t ever explained. In other words while there are things that clearly did happen, there are others that you never know if they were real or not, and yet others that obviously didn’t.

Damn that sounds kind of confusing I know. But unlike so many movies that have tried to do something similar and failed miserably Black Swan manages to engage the audience. Or at least I was. This is one of those rare movies that I found compelling while at the same time being a bit surreal. Immediately after watching it I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not. But Black Swan stuck with me and the further I get away from it the more I like it. Though I’m still not certain if it is because the movie was written that well or if it was the performance of Natalie Portman, who clearly deserved the Oscar for her portrayal of Nina (yeah I know that I’ve already said that but it needed stating again). I enjoyed this movie so much that I’m already looking forward to popping the Blu-Ray back into the player to watch it with my wife.

When I recommend a movie I always try and put some caveats in there. You know I’ll mention if you are a genre fan or if you dig movies from the ‘50s. I do this because many times while watching a movie, even one that I really enjoy, I can envision a viewer that it might not appeal to. As a reviewer of movies this is something that I always try to keep in mind. But with Black Swan I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying it on some level. So with that in mind I’m going to give out one of my very rare perfect ratings (I’ve gotten far more picky the longer I do this…). Do yourself a favor and check out Black Swan.

4 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer