the black swan part one

I can't decide how I feel about this movie. It was either really good, or just ridiculous.

Lets think this one out, shall well?

Well. The plot was certainly interesting. As a certain former teacher of mine so aptly noted, it was about wanting to be so perfect, make such a beautiful thing, that you're willing to die for your craft.

This makes sense, we see it at the beginning of the movie practically spelled out for the audience when the director makes the toast to beauty and all that jazz. Then, natalie portman's character, hearafter referred to as "Nat," goes on to work herself into the ground until she's absolutely gone nuts. Nutty Nat then kills herself after she's achieved "perfection" in her craft.

Well, apart from when she makes the guy drop her at the beginning, but if the Nat says she thought it was perfect at the end, then it was acceptably perfect.

Then, of course, you have the weird lesbian attraction to herself SLASH the girl from that seventies show Mila Kunis, hereafter referred to as "Jackie." (I should mention here that I could call them the correct names, but then that would be too easy and clear, right?) So...just...why? Well, Ahn, my former teacher said that she was using the lesbian attraction to herself as a "safe sexual release." Which I suppose would make sense, if she hadn't hooked up with the two guys when she was out with Jackie, which is obviously NOT a safe release. So is she just observing Jackie and then trying to be more like her? And in her warped mind, that means that she is obsessed with or in love with her?

I guess the sign of a good movie is that it makes you ask questions, right? Or should all questions have answers by the end of the last scene?

I'll try a list:


Pros:

I nearly peed myself when whoever it was appeared in the kitchen during the spastic scene after the other spastic scene when the girl stabs herself in the face.

I screamed and closed my eyes during the stabbing in the face scene.

I gasped when she supposedly stabbed mila in the gut.

Well. those are all reactions...

Cons

I hate the shaky camera - it's so overdone and honestly, I know something is wrong when the score is in a minor key and the sound gets really loud. You don't need to shake the camera.

Friggin almost had an epileptic attack when she was supposed to be high at the dance club. My god, I couldn't watch and my head hurt.

Why didn't the mom want her to see Jackie at the door? That was weird. She hadn't even done anything yet.

They really didn't show us the dancing. It just seems odd to focus so much on the story behind a dance, all for the "beauty of it" and then not show the actual dance. Oh sure, the final scene was nice, but even then we had super up close shots of Nat's face and very few of the actual dance. And the camera was so busy shaking and the effects that made her skin ripple all crazy during every other dance made it essentially impossible to see the show. After all that, I want to be rewarded with this supposedly perfect dance.

HOW THE F*** DID SHE DANCE WITH A STAB WOUND?! I mean honestly, there's just no way. Not that movies are about accuracies now, but that's just over the line....


Well. That was thoroughly inconclusive.

I'll sleep on it.