Black Swan

Bea says: We had seen this previewed and thought it might be worth a go, and made our first attempt to do so on a very cold Sunday evening last week - only to find it sold out! We tried again last night, successfully this time, and noticed that the cinema was almost full. This one is proving relatively popular at the box office it seems.

Black Swan is loosely based on the story of Swan Lake it would seem, and the ballet of Swan Lake is also a key part of the film as the plot revolves aroud a ballet company's performance of this classic. Natalie Portman plays Nina, an anxious and perfectionist young dancer at the company, who is chosen to play the Swan Queen - both "white" and "black" roles, meaning she will have to discover and express the darker side of her good-girl, people-pleasing persona - a challenge for her.

The company's (male) director and a new dancer recently arrived introduce her to this darker side of herself, and Nina experiments with her sexuality and with drugs, alcohol and violence. The result is a magnificent performance as the Black Swan, and, interestingly, a rather poor one as the White Swan - her original character. Watch out for a (now) rare performance by Winona Ryder.

When summarised like this the plot actually sounds quite good - if only the director had kept a light touch and maintained this, the film might have been very good indeed. Instead, for some completely unknown reason, the plot descends into the worst and most boring kind of slasher/horror film with much gratuitous violence (dead people coming back to life covered in blood to startle audience etc). In my view, the plot was almost completely abondoned to achieve this.

I noted that the closing credits included some for 3D effects although the film did not appear to be shown in 3D. This is my worry about the effect of the current vogue for 3D - all effects, no plot or story.

A promising film that was dealt with far too heavyhandedly, and so disappoints.
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Cecil says: As we walked through the bitter Washington cold to get to the cinema last Sunday, I assumed the little 9 year old girls heading in the same direction were probably going to this film about a ballet dancer. Actually I think they were going to the real Nutcracker ballet at the theatre round the corner, and as Bea says, probably a good thing, given the rather explicit sex and violence we were served up as the film progressed.

Having finally got to see the film last night in a still packed cinema, I have to say I'm not quite sure what all the fuss was about, or why it's such a hit over here. Sure, the dancing is good, and I guess it's cheaper to spend $10 on a cinema ticket rather than $50 at the ballet round the corner, but this film did not do a lot for me. I realised half way through that I had sat arms folded and barely moved from the start. I didn't care terribly much what happened to this anorexic, paranoid young thing who couldn't quite hack it as the star performer and had an annoyingly cloying Mom.

So when the film turned into a classic American horror film more reminiscent of Carrie or Aliens, I really wondered what I was doing there, or why the audience around me were getting so worked up at the various shocking body parts transforming or injuries that weren't really injuries.

Having said that, time did fly by and the music is great, but maybe stay warm at home and buy a good CD of Swan Lake instead. Or maybe I was just troubled by the fact that the guy who played the key male role, Thomas, just reminded me of my sister's ex-boyfriend...

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