Look, Back in Centre: The wildest 'Black Swan'

This year along with Chris Nolan's most original & dreamy 'Inception', Darren Aronofsky’s 'Black Swan' hits the mark and captures the attention of global cine-goers. This film is a composite poetry of dark, starky truth and swallowed complexities of human nature. A commendable effort to measure the distance from the outer world to inner world. This motion picture gives us a chance to feel the 'perfection'.

'Black Swan' opens with indulging dream sequence, indicating that some of the sequences follow only in the subconscious imagination of Nina, an emotionally charged ballerina played

with bold ferocity by Natalie Portman. Nina desires to own centre stage and, after years of hard punishment-like training, she has the opportunity to star in the double role of the White Swan and Black Swan in a re-visionist staging of 'Swan Lake'. Nina is an instinctive wonder, a sexually innocent, completely dedicated ballerina bent on taking it to the next level by acquiring the lead role in 'Swan Lake'. The character of the White Swan suits her, the lead role requires she also play the Black Swan, a role she can't snag until she travels her dark side. The White Swan is very pure, innocent and virginal, and the Black Swan is a seductress and in-control. It’s a rare and an invisible split to explore all the greys between the white and black. The ballet director (Vincent Cassel) is not convinced she’s capable of justifying the Swan Queen’s dark side, so he chooses another dancer, a cunning and playful rival played by Mila Kunis, to challenge her. As that weren’t suffice, Nina’s also got Beth (Winona Ryder) haunted and disturbed prime ballerina and her over-obsessive former ballerina mom (Barbara Hershey). Naked rivalries, manipulative friendships, a ruining body and an increasingly tenuous trap of reality all pressure Nina on the verge of a breakdown. Her demons are haunting her every effort along with destructive forces. She is scared by her jealous competitor and ill-experienced dancer- Lily, Nina's undying hard work in pure unexplored realm of perfection lead to catastrophe as startling events begin to unfold in her life, making her question her own sanctity in the pursuit of excellence on stage. Her quest ends when she feels a sphere of complete Nirvana. That's the highlight of this film.

Sculpting psychological intricacies to the changing world of an artistically obsessed ballerina, director Darren Aronofsky has followed up his outstanding The Wrestler (2008), Requiem for a dream (2000) & Pi (1998) with another injuring syllabus of physical pain and enduranc

e in the pursuit of a dream. With Natalie Portman dominating the movements and showing a screen presence not seen from her before, this all - enough blood, sweat and tears to touch nicely beyond the ballet audience. With its sexual underlying and a 'fantasy' lesbian love scene between Portman and Kunis, Black Swan offers more than enough to spellbind cinema seekers. It's a powerful and frightening bravura of filmmaking and should do some nice business with descent accolades across the globe.

The director, exercising from a screenplay by Mark Heyman, Andrew Heinz and John Mclaughlin, has crafted a totally original look as a quest for artistic interpretation and performance; in the process he has perceived the not-so-coherent plot of the classic ballet. Portman remarkably showcases the difficult dancing with a confidence and injects it to articulate the confusion and the guilt of a blended young woman. It's a gorgeous mind trip. All these layers, which are the use of a Gothic symbol- the power of the female body.

Portman, showing the benefits of ten months dance training and becomes a leading Oscar contender, but she is accompanied every step by the lively Kunis, a commanding and competent Cassel and a resistive and repulsive Hershey. Ryder is in brief yet effective portrayal of the cheated ballet diva. Background score and re-orchestration of swan theme is top notch as is the extraordinary hand-held camera work of Matthew Libatique, which gives a cinematic reason to breathe for the first time. Black Swan is unpredictable, a piece of sheer brilliance & a thrilling journey to watch. The film takes its visual and thematic authenticity of demons and evils in Nina’s head. Portman, so often required to play a wide-eyed colonial queens, here she has driven and unhinged very believably.

For his part, Aronofsky is inspired from the intense European films and is created a psycho-drama that’s deranged and daring and utterly uncompromising while also making it clear that there’s a strong hand on the throttle. Beneath the eye-boggling cinematography and other cinematic dynamism lurks a grim and intrigue fairy tale about passion, ambition and obsession. This film is a must-watch to introspect ourselves and it floats between our godly constructiveness and destructive evilness. It makes us travel

led beneath our own layers of brains. It's amazing and beautiful, but when you get up close, you will see the breath, the sweat & the blood. It seems there are so many swan feathers flowing in the heads of every thinking individual. Perhaps?!!

Neeraj Joshi,

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