Natalie Portman goes dark for Black Swan

Movies and Television
Natalie Portman IS the Black Swan © 2010 Fox Searchlight.

Black Swan is one of those hype movies that does and does not live up to the hype.

  • Great movie about ballet and the ridiculously beautiful Natalie Portman being lovely and great, no it’s not .. but not sure how someone would get that idea.
  • Super mondo freaky Darren Aronofsky of Pi and Requiem for a Dream (which I still have not watched all the way through) fame, it also kinda fails.
  • Entertaining, compelling look at obsession, psychosis, neurosis and just screwed up people, it is.

Why are the people always fucked up?

Yes Black Swan is out there, but not enough. You kinda knew or at least weren’t surprised by the end, the mind games and tricks played. So what if the ballet director is an asshole, the understudy kinda skanky, the mother overly protective? They aren’t that freaky.

I know plenty of “normal” parents who plan it all, do their COLLEGE kids homework, or raise the grandkids, everything. Plenty of “normal” people have low sex drives, have never masturbated, whatever. I guess “normal” people are that boring to watch but the line between that and this is, IDK.

Like alcoholics and crackheads, there are some functioning obsessives and perfectionists who get through everyday life: people drink, do drugs, rub one out in the morning, go out and have NOTHING to talk about but work. They usually end up in management.

Why is it always sex and drugs?

Now for the dance part, I get the sex. Dance is very much about passion, about release, about seduction. But for the rest, I don’t know.. though Film Freak Central has a reasonable analysis.

Just like those crappy divorcee movies when all the rich white woman needs is to hang with the unwashed masses and have a good orgasm. Because according to Hollywood hacks, all woman are frigid prudes. They need to get good and drunk or stoned (Living Out Loud) to let loose and enjoy cock. Or they are slutty, skanky whores who can’t get enough dick, no in between.

Drugs and sex as the “ultimate” releases, to me about as trite and cliche as the epiphany of childbirth for a mother or a father holding that baby for the first time, or One Twrue Lwove it all comes into focus, the songs make sense (hee .. love Castle) and there is light and fluffy bunnies in the world.

It’s filmdom’s way of saying you haven’t lived unless you been good and laid, had a kid, been coked out of your head, had the best prom ever. Barf.

What a punch

Carrying the movie is Natalie Portman, though thankfully this is NOT one of those movies made solely for the purpose of watching someone act for 2 hours. Portman’s obsessive ballerina is equally meek and aggressive, passive and viscous, strong and weak. The physicality is there, the training evident.

Supporting players like Barabara Hershey, Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel (dude from the banal Ocean’s sequels) all bring it.

Final Snark: Out there and not for everyone, but then again.. if you’re expecting some crazy scene with Natalie Portman fornucating with a billy goat, a Ken doll and den of hooka smoking hookers whilst dancing Swan Lake, it’s not that out there. I know I’ll watch and enjoy it again when it hits cable, but not making a special trip back to the theater just to see if I go all The Sixth Sense on it.

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