Black Swan: My Review

I'm not usually fond of movies about dancing. But when I found myself with nothing to do on a stupid hot Sunday afternoon I thought it a good idea to go & sit in an air conditioned room at the local cinema & watch a movie for a couple of hours. It would keep me out of the sun & entertain me at the same time. Genius.

The movie choice for this week was Black Swan. It was Blake's pick. Normally anything about ballet I would shun however Natalie Portman won an assortment of awards at all the celebrity awards thinga-me-jigs plus the movie trailer looked interesting. I wanted to see what it was all about.

We were lucky enough to get good seats but these seats came with a side of ice cream eating old lady who'd decided to come to the 'flicks' on her own & was of course seated beside us. She stood in front of her seat with her ice cream cone for about 5 minutes trying to figure out how to actually get on it. The seats at our local cinema are folded up & don't actually go down until you put your arse on it. It needs weight on it to stay down. She didn't quite understand the logic of this & made me think maybe she hadn't been to the movies in a while. In the end I showed her what to do. After she was seated she rolled off on one of those 'in my day' stories. It was at that stage I tuned out & let Blake be the devoted listener. 

Natalie Portman plays the main character 'Nina'. Nina is a severely unhinged, but extremely beautiful professional ballet dancer who's constant strive for perfection is making her lose her mind. Nina auditions for the part of Swan Queen in her New York ballet company's performance of Swan Lake. She gets the part, but not before having a pash with her ballet teacher to get it. The catch is, she not only has to play the pure virginal white swan queen, but she also has to portray the evil seductive black swan. As Nina struggles with trying to split herself between the contrasting good & evil emotions of the 2 characters, the physical & mental toll of being a professional ballet dancer & living with a control freak ex pro-ballerina mother, Nina finds some solace in care-free spirited & fellow dancer 'Lily' played by Mila Kunis. Nina's relationship with Lily is extremely odd but compelling.

This movie is full on, all the way, double strange. But really really well done. And Portman has totally deserved all the accolades for her superb acting. The ballet dancing is kinda pretty however I still don't like ballet. I was so amazed that the main characters in the movie all learnt ballet from scratch. All I can say is big snaps to them. That's pretty impressive.

There's some girl on girl action (I'm pretty sure that's why Blake was so up for seeing it just quietly), some manic self pleasuring, a little bit of soft gore but enough to make me express my distaste out loud & a whole lot of loud classical music. Ick.

I would not recommend taking your ice cream eating granny to see this movie unless you want to disgust and/or scare her. And have to spend some time explaining to her how the frickin seats work.

If you're movie viewing preference falls under the 'mind f**kery' category, then please go & see this movie. It know you will like it.

Peace & Love
Bx

P.S Sorry for the swear words ma.