Black Swan (2010)

Black Swan is not so much a movie about ballerinas, but rather mental disorders and psychological issues. Natalie Portman plays Nina, an emotionally disturbed ballerina who works for a prestigious ballet company in New York City.  She earns the lead role in the ballet Swan Lake, however as her teacher Thomas (Vincent Cassel) keeps pointing out, she plays the White Swan well, but needs a lot of help with her Black Swan.  Mila Kunis plays Lily, a new ballerina to the company, who does the perfect Black Swan and whom Nina feels threatened by.  We watch as Nina battles her inner demons, from her first practice session to her final performance as both the White and Black Swan

I was greatly disturbed after watching this movie.  It was not the emotional aspects that disturbed me; it was the excessive use of blood and toe shots that got me.  Watching Nina pick at her skin and then watching the dancers stand on their tip-tip-tip-toes was horrifying.  I was in pain after watching this movie.  I had to close my eyes several times and for several seconds until I was sure Nina had stopped picking at her back.  It was a nervous twitch she had and it was disgusting. 

I have seen several films on mental illness of some sort or another, so that part did not affect me.  Well actually, I did go into the movie a little depressed about the end of the holiday season, so it did not help my depression.  However, it did not disturb me.  I give Portman great kudos and laud for her portrayal.  She deserved that Golden Globe for sure and I would not be surprised if she won the Academy Award as well.  I have never seen her in such a pivotal role.  I always knew she was talented, but she took this role to another level.  She was Nina Sayers and that was scary.  I completely forgot I was even watching Portman up there.  Though I walked out disturbed and said I could never watch that again, I walked away knowing the acting and movie itself were unbelievable.

Kunis did a great job too.  I am so used to her comical role as Jackie on That 70’s Show that it was great watching her play a more dramatic character.  I always enjoy her.  Kunis herself seems like a nice, easy-going person and I hope this role pushes her career to a new level and that directors take her more seriously.  She needs a leading, dramatic role to show the world her exquisite talent and persona that I see in her and I hope she is offered that role soon.  Cassel was extremely believable as a ball-busting teacher and I really enjoyed his performance.  Barbara Hershey was great as Nina’s mother and I really wanted to ring her neck.  She too, though, disturbed me and I could not figure out what her deal was.  The one I had a hard time with, and have a hard time seeing in dramatic roles, is Winona Ryder.  She played Beth, the star ballerina who was fired prior to Nina being cast.  It is not that I don’t like Ryder or that I have not seen her in dramatic roles, I just think she is kind of done in the acting world and should move on.  She made some great films, but it is over for her.  Luckily her role was very small and mainly helped to show how crazy Nina was.

The biggest theme I saw in the film was that I never knew what was actually going on and what was just happening in Nina’s mind.  I still do not know what was fact and what was fiction.  Did Nina and Lily really get in on?  I had to mention the sex scene since it was so highly talked about.  It was pretty explicit, but it was only one scene.  I walked in expecting to see more than just a couple of minutes of Portman and Kunis action, but there was not.  I am not complaining, I am just saying to me it was no big deal and nothing worse than I have ever seen.  It is more than women kissing, but less than seeing a bunch of female body parts.  And did Nina really die at the end?  I would believe that since she inflicted herself with pain often, so maybe she did kill herself.  But how did she finish the ballet?  The confusion does not bother me though.  It is interesting and makes me think, so it is a good thing.

So what do I think about Black Swan?  Great movie with outstanding acting; Natalie Portman’s best performance to date.  Would I ever watch it again?  Hell no.  Picking at scabs and pointing toes directly into the floor brought me way too close to vomiting.  Should you watch it if you have not seen it?  Definitely.

Blue Valentine (2010)

Blue Valentine is a brilliant film starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as a young, married couple whose expanding distance from one another, emotionally and sexually, proves to be too great a challenge for them to work through.  The movie begins in the present at the couple’s home.  Throughout the course of the film, we are shown flashbacks as to where each character was in his/her life when they met and how their relationship began.

I saw an interview with Gosling before this movie came out and he described the couple’s relationship as strongly sexual based in the beginning, which is why it led to its ultimate failure.  I did not see that so much.  I saw two people who wanted to find love, who wanted to make a connection.  For Dean, Gosling’s character, I think he did find what he was looking for.  Was it  his true love?  I am not sure, but I think he would have been just fine living with Cindy, William’s character, for the rest of his life.  When Cindy got pregnant, and even admitted it was not Dean’s child, he willingly dropped everything in his life to be with her.  There is a part of the movie when Cindy asks Dean what he wants from life and asks why he doesn’t strive for more.  He answers that he has what he wanted, the family, he just did not know that was what he always wanted.  Dean is content.

I believe Cindy, on the other hand, never truly loved Dean.  She was dating an absolute asshole before Dean, so Dean was definitely a step up for her in terms of “nice guy” appeal.  She was also physically attracted to Dean and she too was searching for the man who would make her weak in the knees and fall head over heels.  But I think the only reason she married him was a) because she was pregnant and b) she hoped Dean was the one, even though she knew in her heart he was not.  Over the years, he kept proving himself more and more not to be the one.  By the time we join them in the present, Cindy is semi-willing to try one more time, but basically knows this is it.  I so understood how she felt, especially during the sex scene when she was crying and wanted it so badly to be over.  It eerily reminded me of a past love and him complaining how unfair it was that we are never physical.  The closer I am to the film’s topic, however, the more involved I get in the plot.

I just found this film to be one of the best relationship films I have seen in a long time.  And the way it was shot was amazing too.  Various camera angles were used and there was a darker tint to the film, which added to the realism.  I could feel what the characters felt and re-experienced parts of my past in ways I never had before.  I knew in watching the preview for this film it would do that to me and because I welcomed it, I enjoyed the film to the utmost degree.  I probably will see it again and most likely will buy it.  It is that good.