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next_to_normal) wrote2011-01-19 05:18 pm
next_to_normal) wrote2011-01-19 05:18 pm
Entry tags:
Black Swan
I still have a zillion (okay, five) items on my list of things to post about, so let's see if I can knock a few out this week. I just seem to keep seeing more stuff, and then the list gets longer...
So, let's talk about Black Swan, which is rather apropos, given that I went to the ballet just last night (yay for friends with box seats! lol). You may remember me mentioning that Kelly and I saw Black Swan while she was here for New Year's. The review is pretty spoilery, so if you haven't seen it and you plan to, here's the short version: I loved it, Kelly pronounced it "fuckin' weird" and watched a fair bit of it peeking out from behind her scarf. :) To be fair, it is pretty grotesque at times. It's a psychological horror movie, so if that's not your thing, you probably won't like it. But amidst the gore, it really is gorgeous filmmaking. Oh, and there's some explicit sex, so, you know... leave the kids at home.
At first glance, ballet and horror don't seem like the most obvious combination for a movie, but I thought it worked really well. Granted, my experience with ballet ended at the wizened old age of six, so most of my exposure is from friends who danced throughout high school and college. It's a fantastic, beautiful art, but it's also rather brutal, physically and mentally. Much of the beauty comes from seeing a dancer move in ways a human body shouldn't be able to move, and there has to be some pain in that. I loved the way the movie drew on that, with the cracked and bloodied toes, the aching muscles. We really see Nina pushing her body to the breaking point. There's also the pressure that comes from pursuing a professional career that relies so much on appearance and fitness. The competition is unbelievable, not only to be the best, which means long hours of practice and sacrifice to stay in top shape, but also to look like a ballerina. One of my college friends suffered from an eating disorder which developed from that kind of pressure. And having just been there yesterday, I gotta say, the very first thing I noticed was how skinny the dancers were (and the fact that their costumes absolutely could not be worn by anyone above an A cup). My friend Becky, who is a regular at the ballet, said something to the effect of, "Yeah, the soloists are always skinnier than everyone else," which says a lot about the competition.
Black Swan takes that one step further by showing what happens when someone who is already unstable is put in this environment. Nina's ambition and perfectionism turns to an all-consuming obsession, and normal performance pressure turns to incredible paranoia, as Nina fears her understudy will usurp her role the way Nina herself replaced the last prima ballerina. In keeping with the demanding physicality of ballet, the horrors Nina imagines are physical - her toes melted together, her skin peeling off, her knees bent backward, the changing images of herself in the mirror. And because we are so firmly in Nina's POV throughout, it's sometimes impossible to tell what's real and what's a hallucination.
I love the way Nina's breakdown echoes the dual role she's playing. Her director describes her dancing as "frigid," and that's pretty much a description of her entire sheltered life - she has no interests outside of ballet, she has no friends or meaningful relationships, and she never has any fun. She's perfect for the virtuous, precise performance the White Swan requires, but in order to play the Black Swan, she has to find that darkness within herself. Her journey throughout the film is an effort to experience passion, to learn seduction, and it's only by letting go completely, unleashing her paranoia-driven fury, that she's capable of evoking the emotion she needs to deliver the perfect performance. But she can't live like that; no one could live like that. Kelly seemed annoyed that she died at the end, but I was left thinking, "Of course she died. She had to die. She is the Swan Queen, and the Swan Queen kills herself at the end." It's like method acting taken to its absolute extreme. She wanted to be perfect, and she couldn't do that unless she became the role, even if it meant losing herself in the process.
I really appreciate the meta aspects of the casting. I don't think it's a coincidence that Natalie Portman was cast in this role, an actress whose reputation has always had a virginal "good girl" sheen. She's been trying to break out of the mold with more edgy roles lately, but it always feels a little bit like she's playing dress-up. I was unsure whether she'd be able to pull off the darker aspects of this role, but she managed to tap into something deep within - much like her character, though with less dire results - in order to be totally convincing throughout Nina's downward spiral. It was the best performance I've ever seen from her.
(Also clever casting is Winona Ryder as the washed-up prima ballerina forced into retirement, replaced by someone younger. And she thought it was cool, rather than insulting to her career.)
I was less impressed with Lily the sexually adventurous understudy, though to give her credit, I think Mila Kunis certainly did the best with what she was given. But the character is such a cliche that she didn't have nearly the depth to play that Natalie Portman did. Big kudos to both of them for all the training they had to do in order to pull off the ballet dancing. I'm no expert in the technical stuff, but they sure looked good.
So, let's talk about Black Swan, which is rather apropos, given that I went to the ballet just last night (yay for friends with box seats! lol). You may remember me mentioning that Kelly and I saw Black Swan while she was here for New Year's. The review is pretty spoilery, so if you haven't seen it and you plan to, here's the short version: I loved it, Kelly pronounced it "fuckin' weird" and watched a fair bit of it peeking out from behind her scarf. :) To be fair, it is pretty grotesque at times. It's a psychological horror movie, so if that's not your thing, you probably won't like it. But amidst the gore, it really is gorgeous filmmaking. Oh, and there's some explicit sex, so, you know... leave the kids at home.
At first glance, ballet and horror don't seem like the most obvious combination for a movie, but I thought it worked really well. Granted, my experience with ballet ended at the wizened old age of six, so most of my exposure is from friends who danced throughout high school and college. It's a fantastic, beautiful art, but it's also rather brutal, physically and mentally. Much of the beauty comes from seeing a dancer move in ways a human body shouldn't be able to move, and there has to be some pain in that. I loved the way the movie drew on that, with the cracked and bloodied toes, the aching muscles. We really see Nina pushing her body to the breaking point. There's also the pressure that comes from pursuing a professional career that relies so much on appearance and fitness. The competition is unbelievable, not only to be the best, which means long hours of practice and sacrifice to stay in top shape, but also to look like a ballerina. One of my college friends suffered from an eating disorder which developed from that kind of pressure. And having just been there yesterday, I gotta say, the very first thing I noticed was how skinny the dancers were (and the fact that their costumes absolutely could not be worn by anyone above an A cup). My friend Becky, who is a regular at the ballet, said something to the effect of, "Yeah, the soloists are always skinnier than everyone else," which says a lot about the competition.
Black Swan takes that one step further by showing what happens when someone who is already unstable is put in this environment. Nina's ambition and perfectionism turns to an all-consuming obsession, and normal performance pressure turns to incredible paranoia, as Nina fears her understudy will usurp her role the way Nina herself replaced the last prima ballerina. In keeping with the demanding physicality of ballet, the horrors Nina imagines are physical - her toes melted together, her skin peeling off, her knees bent backward, the changing images of herself in the mirror. And because we are so firmly in Nina's POV throughout, it's sometimes impossible to tell what's real and what's a hallucination.
I love the way Nina's breakdown echoes the dual role she's playing. Her director describes her dancing as "frigid," and that's pretty much a description of her entire sheltered life - she has no interests outside of ballet, she has no friends or meaningful relationships, and she never has any fun. She's perfect for the virtuous, precise performance the White Swan requires, but in order to play the Black Swan, she has to find that darkness within herself. Her journey throughout the film is an effort to experience passion, to learn seduction, and it's only by letting go completely, unleashing her paranoia-driven fury, that she's capable of evoking the emotion she needs to deliver the perfect performance. But she can't live like that; no one could live like that. Kelly seemed annoyed that she died at the end, but I was left thinking, "Of course she died. She had to die. She is the Swan Queen, and the Swan Queen kills herself at the end." It's like method acting taken to its absolute extreme. She wanted to be perfect, and she couldn't do that unless she became the role, even if it meant losing herself in the process.
I really appreciate the meta aspects of the casting. I don't think it's a coincidence that Natalie Portman was cast in this role, an actress whose reputation has always had a virginal "good girl" sheen. She's been trying to break out of the mold with more edgy roles lately, but it always feels a little bit like she's playing dress-up. I was unsure whether she'd be able to pull off the darker aspects of this role, but she managed to tap into something deep within - much like her character, though with less dire results - in order to be totally convincing throughout Nina's downward spiral. It was the best performance I've ever seen from her.
(Also clever casting is Winona Ryder as the washed-up prima ballerina forced into retirement, replaced by someone younger. And she thought it was cool, rather than insulting to her career.)
I was less impressed with Lily the sexually adventurous understudy, though to give her credit, I think Mila Kunis certainly did the best with what she was given. But the character is such a cliche that she didn't have nearly the depth to play that Natalie Portman did. Big kudos to both of them for all the training they had to do in order to pull off the ballet dancing. I'm no expert in the technical stuff, but they sure looked good.
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Awesome
(Anonymous) 2011-01-20 04:49 pm (UTC)(link)How are you? Miss you lots!
eds
Re: Awesome
Re: Awesome
(Anonymous) 2011-01-25 08:52 pm (UTC)(link)