EMPIRE'S Verdict Sums It Up Perfectly!

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EMPIRE'S Verdict Sums It Up Perfectly! - 24/3/2011 2:51:48 AM

DMeister

Posts: 13
Joined: 23/9/2010
From: Berkshire

EMPIRE couldn't have put it better than the above. In the beginning it has shades of the Wrestler and it is certainly a companion piece of sorts BUT Black Swan deviates greatly into other genres and becomes a psychological thriller/horror. It is genuinly enthralling and captivating and Natalie Portman is indeed perfectly cast. Stunning movie!

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Post #: 91

Disturbed "Black" Woman Dancer - 26/3/2011 3:29:43 AM

JoseJones

Posts: 37
Joined: 17/4/2008

Well, the key to this film is that what brings the lead character ecstacy or even sexual fulfillment is pain or self-mutilation and flirting with death. That is not really a spoiler by any means, but it seems very few reviewers wish to discuss this matter. Her latent Homosexuality or Bi-sexuality is perhaps real or imagined. She has an inability to express love or recieve love in a conventional way (one that will not kill her). Not to mention her many mental health issues which may include schizophrenia, borderline personality, and a host of other possible chronic diseases. I think the review here by Empire is really good at noting many of the similarities with this film and the Wrestler. When the third film comes out I hope they will re-release these first two so we could see all of them in the theater again. What a wonderful film. It is not for everyone. It is disturbing. But, it is breathtaking, wonderful and seductive, even while it is scary and disturbing.... and beautiful.

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Post #: 92

RE: Black Swan - 27/3/2011 3:33:34 PM

wilky007

Posts: 23
Joined: 18/7/2007

The film itself is superb. Natalie Portman has obviously spend hours upon hours perfecting her craft. The best thing about this film however is the cinematography. The way this film gives you a false sense of security and then something bizzare happens. Its strange because I can't find many horror films that can make me jump but when I go and see this film I jump like 2/3 times.

The problem I have isn't actually about the film. When I went to see this at the cinema it annoyed me immensly when people are too ignorant to enjoy a film like this just because they 'don't like ballet'. Even if you don't enjoy ballet (which to be fair I don't) it doesn't mean you can't respect it as an art and it also doesn't give you merit to not give this film a chance. Rant over...

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Post #: 93

RE: Black Swan - 5/5/2011 1:42:53 PM

Drone

Posts: 959
Joined: 30/9/2005

It was... okay. Personally I thought it was a little stylistically scattershot - I felt there were touches of Suspiria, Rosemarys's Baby and so on in terms of how the whole thing was supposed to feel (it's moments of erraticism and descents into paranoia/lunacy), but the "body horror" element was a bit underwhwleming, and acked a little... uh... "oomph".

I would unquestionably give Natalie Portman five amazing stars as she is nothing short of perfect, but the film itself, three. It was good, but the sum of many small parts rather than a well crafted whole. It's quite difficult to criticize by getting my point across as to what exactly I thought it was lacking - I felt as though there wasn't a great deal of originality in the 'scary' moments, and the flm wasn't nearly as bafling and twisting as it was attemping to be, in my eyes.

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Post #: 94

Not Impressed - 5/5/2011 5:24:49 PM

Turd Ferguson

Posts: 70
Joined: 24/2/2011

I was very excited to see this after hearing all of the hype and having thoroughly enjoyed Aronofsky's The Wrestler. Sadly, I was let down by this surprisingly average movie. Perhaps I'm just not a fan of Aronofsky in general as The Wrestler is the only movie of his that I enjoyed. Although there are many parallels, the plot failed to hold my interest. Yes, her descent into madness was initially intriguing, but getting to the final scene was more of an endurance test than anything. Disappointing.

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Post #: 95

RE: a terrible movie - ignore the hype - 9/5/2011 5:07:00 AM

thomasjamess

Posts: 1
Joined: 9/5/2011
From: Barracks

Aronofsky never failed to deliver and deliver it is in The Black Swan. I have never seen something as mind screwing as this. I really enjoy movies that can leave your mouth gaping wide. something like inception (Nolan) and the rest of Aronofsky's work (the fountain, etc) I heard that he'll be directing / producing the next Wolverine movie. If that cant get you stoked, i dont know what would.

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Post #: 96

RE: a terrible movie - ignore the hype - 9/5/2011 10:17:59 AM

jpdisco

Posts: 41
Joined: 10/11/2005

He's pulled out of Wolverine. Shame...

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Post #: 97

AWESOME - 15/5/2011 12:10:46 PM

chrisdagnall

Posts: 88
Joined: 10/9/2008

IF THIS ISN'T A FIVE STAR MOVIE, NOT SURE WHAT IS!

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Post #: 98

RE: Black Swan - 16/5/2011 5:35:44 AM

Alpha State

Posts: 7
Joined: 16/5/2011
From: Scotland

I was actually a little wary of Black Swan at first due to The Wrestler being by far Aronofsky's most conventional work to date - I think I figured he'd continue in the same vein but I was pleasantly surprised when I watched it. Make no mistake, I think it's a great film but it didn't have that otherworldly, "there's-something-not-quite-right-here" feeling that his previous films have. Black Swan obviously does share some parallels with The Wrestler, but it seems more like The Wrestler by way of Davids Cronenberg and Lynch - I found it visually and psychologically striking, and it's the first film in a while that's actually freaked me out - something that horror movies these days don't even seem to strive for. And if I'm still thinking about a film a full day and a half after I watched it, that's a thumbs up in my book.

Also, the score was absolutely brilliant. Mansell ALWAYS seems to capture the mood of a film dead on.

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Post #: 99

RIP OFF! - 19/5/2011 10:31:28 PM

Horrorguru

Posts: 220
Joined: 11/1/2008

SuSpIrIa kicks the crap! out of this shady knock off!

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Post #: 100

Shame...real shame - 20/5/2011 11:27:26 PM

kirk

Posts: 217
Joined: 30/9/2005

So after months of hype...The Wrestler under his belt.... and plenty of exciting ideas flying around, you’d think Aronofsky would pull it off.
No.
First problem: just too many good ideas flying around. I thought I was going to see a amazing twisted film about the inne4r workings of the ballet world....
But my problem is.... this film did not know what it wanted to be.
Story about ballet/story about a girl in a big ballet/story of a girl getting a lead role in a ballet show/the curse of a lead part/ a story of a girls sexual awakenings/ a horror story with a twist/ a body horror with a ballet twist/a simple tale of a girl in a hard world...

But instead of getting one of these, or maybe even two or three.... we got all of them.... but not one delved into enough.
We got a miss match of what to want to watch. Having most of my female family being ballerinas it was upsetting to not just see more of that aspect of it…not a big black bird figure…or doubles of Natalie Portman.

The cast don’t do a bad job.... its just a hard film to get their heads round.
Portman, god bless her, tries and tries.... but is out acted by everybody else, even the ballet extras with 3 lines!
We can believe her getting cast as the white swan as she’s a limp wet flannel. But even when her transformation comes.... we don’t believe it...
She just isn’t dark enough, or raw enough, or dare I say it.... sexy enough...
Meg from Family Guy does a better job....

Cut a very long story short, I wanted an in depth look of the nasty side of ballet....
Instead I got Darren taking all the good points from the Wrestler throwing them at a wall and covering them in....well...everything.
Maybe its a shame he stepped down from the Wolverine job.... would of been nice for him to come back to the ground for a bit.
Overrated.

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Post #: 101

Exhilirating - 22/5/2011 10:46:21 AM

djphilips

Posts: 104
Joined: 26/12/2008
From: Malta

Very intense, passionate and delivering a fine piece of human drama and emotions, Black Swan works astoundingly thanks to Aronofsky's brilliant direction and Portman's heartfelt performance.

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Post #: 102

So Unique, So Flawed - 14/6/2011 7:35:19 PM

blaud

Posts: 722
Joined: 13/12/2007

Really, this does nothing at all to tarnish Aronofsky's record. The film is shot flawlessly and the technical mastery exhibited here are utterly excellent and there is almost no room for criticism. Performances are also top draw. Portman, Kunis, and Cassel are superb, as is the majority of the rest of the cast. The issue is the film itself. Whilst there is, technically, nothing wrong with the film, it is, however, to my mind, a complete mess. The freeform narrative is a total shambles, so much so that I was really struggling to stay engaged, and had virtually no interest at all in the plot progression. Scenes make perfect sense, script flows like silk, but the plot is so tricksy and so delicately pieced together that it's nothing more than a puzzle with some pieces missing. To sum up: A bizarrely mixed bag.

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Post #: 103

I really like it - - 12/8/2011 10:58:41 PM

bobbyperu

Posts: 497
Joined: 21/10/2007

Polanski meets Lynch meets The Red Shoes - You will either love or hate it - I doubt you will be indifferent -

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Post #: 104

- 16/9/2011 11:51:13 AM

ak1990

Posts: 26
Joined: 23/8/2011
From: London

Just saw Black Swan for the first time. Great film about one woman's obsession with accessing the dark side of her personality she needs to effectively play the Black Swan in Swan Lake.
Portman and Kunis give sublime performances, while Barbara Hershey's portrayl of a powerless mother watching her daughter change in front of her eyes stands out for me.

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Post #: 105

- 16/9/2011 11:51:16 AM

ak1990

Posts: 26
Joined: 23/8/2011
From: London

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Post #: 106

Black Swan Review - 28/2/2012 1:25:37 AM

the film man

Posts: 598
Joined: 13/10/2010

Bracingly intense, passionate, and wildly melodramatic, Black Swan glides on Darren Aronofsky's bold direction, and a bravura performance from Natalie Portman.

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Post #: 107

Black swan - 21/4/2012 9:04:20 PM

antosh25

Posts: 87
Joined: 15/5/2011

LOVED IT ! LOVED IT ! LOVED IT !

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Post #: 108

RE: Black swan - 11/10/2012 10:15:37 PM

Biggus

Posts: 7603
Joined: 2/10/2005
From: Not Local

Following on from his 2008 indie success The Wrestler director Darren Aronofsky delivers his masterpiece. Black Swan takes the form of a psychological horror and tells the story of an obsessive, insecure ballet dancer and her determination to deliver the �perfect� performance in the dual role of both the White and eponymous Black Swan in a new production of the classic ballet Swan Lake.

To take the verite stylings of The Wrestler and apply them to the grand operatic nature of Black Swan could potentially lead to a very unbalanced picture but Aronofsky pulls it off brilliantly, largely because it is unquestionably a genre piece and his choice to shoot much of the action handheld compliments and enhances the horror elements of the film. Credit must be given to Clint Mansell�s beautiful score which melds his own work with Tchaikovsky�s original Swan Lake compositions expertly conveying the ever-crossing lines of reality and fantasy which run throughout the film.

The lead role is taken up by Natalie Portman in an Oscar-winning performance as Nina Sayers, a would-be prima ballerina who is offered the title role in director Vincent Cassel�s new production. Portman is the perfect choice for this as she eschews her girl-next-door image and transforms her body (via a rigorous, ballet boot camp regime) to the physically drawn and wiry/muscular dancer we see on screen.

Her hallucinatory descent throughout the film is coupled with kind of visceral body horror with which Cronenberg made his name. It never oversteps the mark and provides perfect symmetry between the psychological and physical deterioration/transformation of the character in her quest for perfection. As the lines between reality and Nina�s tormented ambition blur, Portman�s performance seems to excel and never feels unsympathetic even when the character�s sense of morality seems to desert her. Her hellish journey culminates at the inaugural performance of the ballet and thanks to a seamless blend of make-up and CGI-assisted trickery, Nina�s dance as the Black Swan is one of the most stunning sequences in cinema in the past 10 years and provides the most perfect crescendo to this stunning achievement in film-making.

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Post #: 109