black swan

this movie is definitely memorable because i got sick while watching this... now i'm at home in bed typing away as i wipe my runny nose with tissue and drink water even as my stomach revolts. some people enjoy being in bed and being sick. i don't.

back to the task at hand. i had heard about black swan last year because i heard it was a movie about ballet. note: i am a huge ballet fan - i studied ballet as a child and am familiar with terminology so i don't really get lost with ballet jargon when i hear them =) also, i love french - but i digress. the last ballet movie i'd seen (and loved) was titled centerstage starring a then-unknown zoe saldana (avatar). it was a quirky, cutesy teenage poppy film about how it's like auditioning for a slot in a ballet company and what they go through in order to get there (training, technique and such). black swan turned ballet on its head and sat on it. this is NOT your mother's ballet.

the movie actually jars you mentally and visually as it starts off with a shaky camera (my friend complained all the way through the movie that she was getting dizzy because of the camera movement) and natalie as nina sayers performing some ballet warm ups in front of a full-length mirror as she prepares for rehearsal.

on hindsight, now that i think about it, aronofsky did everything on purpose: the camera movement was done so because there were some pretty cool visual effects that worked well with it. i particularly loved the subtle vfx: natalie's skin would take on a scale-like texture in some scenes (you really have to look very closely or at least be very observant) and the very clever use of mirrors.

performance-wise, natalie really owned this. she deserves all the accollades and awards and very warm compliment from david letterman about her acting after he'd seen the movie. she does deserve the oscar. the subtle facial and attitude changes switching from nina to the black swan was so uncanny and only she could've pulled it off. great thing about this also is that all the actors embodied their characters. i wouldn't say that mila kunis would be right as nina because she was perfect as lily. great casting, by the way =) portman and kunis looked a lot like each other enough to confuse the two of them ;)

the mother was frickin crazy and i loved it. the name of the actress escapes me right now and i'm too lazy to check imdb for it but she was awesome. she reminded me of the mother in psycho. *chills*

the french actor - whom i recall i'd seen in ocean's 12 (or was it 13?) as the thief who slipped and slid through the floors of some museum - was really scary and gross and horny as the instructor who feels up natalie and gets to make out with both her and mila. his role was really vital in the movie n- i just realized that because without his pushing and prodding, black swan would've never come out.

as like any other "out there" movie, prior to seeing it, i was discouraged from watching because it was confusing and boring according to some people. well, i guess i send off a vibe that i'm stupid or something because they apparently haven't seen my dvd collection yet. i loved the film for taking risks and for them to have paid off bigtime. aronofsky deserves a lot of the credit too. he stayed with his vision and in the process came up with a brilliantly-directed picture that everyone, regardless if they like ballet or not, should see.

be prepared to be pleasantly surprised by both kunis and portman as they are actresses who have had the squeaky-clean images back in the late 90s and have both been slowly veering away from said reputation. look out for a really steamy scene between the two after they get stone ass drunk. that really made my jaw drop. overall, it's a 10 for me =)