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,

Ingen Advertising

reachus@ingenads.com

Charles Darwin & the Tree of Life:

“That Mr. Darwin Should have wandered from this broad highway of nature’s work into the jungle of fanciful assumption is no small evil”

“Fails utterly”

“I have read your book with more pain than pleasure. It is the frenzied inspiration of the inhaler of a mephitic gas”

These are some of the initial reviews which Charles Darwin’s revolutionary theory & book “On the origin of species” provoked on its initial publication on 24^th November, 1859.

Produced by BBC to mark the bicentenary of Darwin's birth, with the presenter Sir David Attenborough Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life is a 2009 television docume

ntary that is vividly a catalogue of major scientific events and contributions enhancing the theory of Natural Selection

The one-hour documentary covers a wide range of subjects from Darwin’s visit to Galapagos, his collection and observation of different kinds of species, his reflections over it, formatting a definite theory in 1844 A.D. and patiently waiting for next 14 tiresome years in collecting the mountain of evidence in his theory’s support. The documentary also embarks on the nostalgia of Attenborough, visiting his own college and practical class rooms along with Attenborough’s old footages from his previous LIFE series.

It takes the audience on a tour to Natural History Museum in London, most prestigious of its kind, giving a glimpse of the 20 years of close friendship and then lifelong rivalry between two renowned and scientists of intellectual spectrum of the era, Charles Darwin and Richard Owen, the highest fossil collector of bones and the man behind naming the dinosaurs.

The documentary also covers in context and relation to natural selection some of the important theories and inventions like Marie Curie’s Dating System to calculate

the age of rocks by studying the amount of Uranium in it, Nobel laureates Watson’s and Crick’s Double Helix structure of DNA, Continent Drift theory explaining the same species on continents apart, connecting links between primitive organisms to today’s complex living entities deduced from fossils (archaeopteryx) to present living creatures ( Hoatzin & Platypus ).

The film starts with Attenborough quoting from the Holy Bible, “On the third day, plants were created. On the Fifth day, Fish and birds were created. On sixth day, He created Man. God asked Adam and Eve to leave the Garden and establish their dominance over the fishes of seas and the fowls of land. Thus Holy Bible has given man, a right to exploit the nature.”

The Climax of the film magnificently deals with the idea, ‘All Life is one’, illustrated by creatively imaginative animation suggesting that all life came from a single cell. The film pays a tribute to Charles Darwin by showing the footages of Natural History Museum, where after 150 years, the Statue of Charles Darwin has been relieved of its duty of being seated in a Cafeteria of Museum, idly watching science lovers munching on donuts and grabbing the sips of coffee, and now rightfully being placed at the centre hall of the museum (replacing the statue of his lifelong rival Richard Owen)

Rahul Bhole,

Foreshadow Pictures

swades_wethepeople@yahoo.co.in

Pixar – Enter The World!!!

Your childhood is where it all starts – the wildest thoughts but still possible, the most colorful worlds, the talking animals and what not. For most of us, the word “animation” is synonymous with “cartoons” and if you’re talking of cartoons, you can’t miss the good ol’ days of your childhood when Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Tweetie, Tom & Jerry and others were your most sought after characters. Their heroisms, dumbness and pranks left you wanting for more of them.

But then comes the time to say goodbyes. Our childhood starts dissolving in our memories. All the bright and colorful worlds go blurry. The talking and laughing animals and birds seem a laughable idea. We’ve grown up. Cartoons become a thing of the past. Thrills, sex, knowledge-power and real life give us a call.

Amidst all this, somewhere faraway a world was in the making. A world of few technicians, animators and creative minds for whom cartoons were not just a reminiscence of their childhood but an untapped world of entertainment with great potential of satisfaction for them as well as the world. These were the people who gave us our favorite animation movie house “Pixar”, which initially worked on producing film sequences with Lucasfilm, was then purchased by Steve Jobs and finally joined Disney Studios to give us some of the best animated movies we’ve ever seen.

Since more than a decade, each year Pixar takes its worldwide fans on a joyful emotional ride into the most stunning animated worlds of characters that are amusing and still equally believable. Like the touch of Midas converted everything into gold, Pixar’s touch to animation and CGI made every object and being beautiful, real and most of all true to life. Let’s Enter the World of Pixar and have a look at some of its works:

(1) Toy Story (1995)

We see the world from our eyes. Pixar saw it through the eyes of toys by bringing them alive in this wonderful film about life in the world of child’s closest love - toys.

The film was about friendship, unity and rivalry in the world of toys of a boy after he brings to his collection a modern spaceman toy who easily takes the top position over other toys in the list of his favorites. The movie was loved not only by “toy-playing” children but even the youngsters and elders for the story and its adorable toy characters Buzz Lightyear, the spaceman, Woody the cowboy and Mr. Potato Head to name a few. Though the movie has already taken us “To infinity and beyond” of fun and entertainment twice, hope the best is yet to come once again this year.

(2) Finding Nemo (2003)

The most commercially successful Pixar film, grossing over $800 million worldwide, Finding Nemo was the tale of a lost baby fish that started at the bottom of the ocean and reached to the hearts of its viewers and stays there till date.

Audience sincerely appreciated the father-son underwater adventure that explored the animated worlds of rich blue ocean with Nemo as it moved through its coral reef home to the school with its most weirdest, often funny talking sea creatures to the dangerous human world in Sydney and back to ocean with the help of its father and others of its species. No wonder, how lost Nemo is, someone somewhere’s always finding him out.

(3) Cars (2006)

What begun as a world of victory and glamour ended on a stunning realisation and redemption of the meaning of friendship, love and family in this world of Pixar’s live automobiles.

We all loved Lightning McQueen’s pride, Doc Hudson’s secret and the unforgettably funny Mater in this Pixar classic that came with a simple message – “Life means more”. Also, the simultaneous story of Route 66 – a once brimming with traffic countryside road finally abandoned for human convenience and development created a beautifully somber emotion in the lives of movie’s characters and for many of us as well. Combined together by Pixar’s unique story-tellers and animators, Cars surely were winners all the way.

(4) Ratatouille (2007)

Set amidst the beautiful city of Paris (now animated and even better), Ratatouille is the story of following your smallest dreams and making it big in life against all odds – a philosophy that was beautifully explained through the characters Remy (a rat dreaming to become a chef), Linguini (from “nobody” to somebody), Anton Ego (the food critic) and Chef Gusteau (“the figment of Remy’s imagination!!”)

Undoubtedly, the show stealer seems to be the hardcore food critic Anton Ego who’s hard as a shell critic character melted down after trying his childhood favorite “Rat.aa.too.ee” and realising that “Anyone can cook!!” As for the audience, they returned back again to relish one of the Pixar’s most palatable dish.

(5) Wall-E (2008)

Wall-E, acronym for Waste Allocated Load Lifter – Earth Class was another Pixar film that earned applause all over the world for its levels of creativity, story-telling and animation.

A serious issue like what the future might hold for us if we continue to live the way we do today was combined with a light-hearted love story of a lonely robot left behind on planet Earth as Waste Allocated Load Lifter – Earth Class, or Wall-E. The most endearing part of the movie truly was Wall-E’s light-hearted love story with EVA and the friendship he shared with the sole being on Earth’s rubble – a tiny cockroach. Director’s vision for putting an emotion as natural and pure as love in a mere manmade machine was truly appreciated. And the message that a tiny two-leaved plant could save the entire human generation’s a message to us all too. Try interpreting yourself or search for Wall-E.

(6) Up (2009)

When we all thought how much Pixar could excel its own works, it presented us with Up. The film combined Carl Fredickson’s emotional tribute to his wife with Russell’s attempts to bag the Ellie Badge, all in the background of an adventurous trip to South America’s Paradise Falls by a most unbelievable route – blowing Up the house with thousands of balloons. And like always, during the journey, we met some more “Pixar”ed characters like Charles Muntz, Kevin the bird, and a dog talking through its collar – that made the trip as memorable a Pixar film as it can be.

The film’s already won two very deserving Golden Globes – for the animated film and for original background score by Michael Giacchino. We all hope it goes Up somewhere at the top of the list.

As is evident, apart from stunning animation and creativity which have been the foremost strengths of any Pixar film, what has given it a strong fan following is the style in which it creates emotional situations by touching the core sentiments of its lead characters - sometimes by taking you to the most unthinkable worlds and creating a story out of it that stays with you long after and at other times, by simply creating a theme piece that speaks more for the characters than the characters themselves.

No wonder, Pixar lives upto its motto – “We believe in impossible.”

Meet Thakar

meet.thakar@yahoo.com

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