Black Swan reveiw

In Many ways, the film, Black Swan is a shocking and modern version of the ballet, Swan lake, haveing great similarities to the ballet, but still containing new contemporary twists such as the main character being a lesbeian, something only fifty years ago wouldn't be allowed, let alone produced.

Black Swan is also very operatic in the way the shots are made and the soundtrack used. The start of the film is reminisent of a shakespeian play, "I had the craziest dream last night, about a girl who turned into a swan, but her prince falls for the wrong girl and she kills herself" -Nina (Natalie Portman), Blackswan, opening scene. This sounds very much like a prolouge- a short version of what is going to happen in the film.

the prologe to the Black Swan, a white  ballerina on a black screen with a single white spotlight casting down on her- like an empty stage awaiteing the ballet.

The film, Black swan is a grey mixture of a seemingly 'normal' life of a hard working dancer and a much darker work of phycosis- a world of fightning illusions, tryng to stop her from being 'perfect'. The camera angles too, try to see Nina's angles on the world hardly ever takeing the camera off of the character. Andy Weisblum, Editor of Black Swan said: " Darren (director)decided to shoot it in a documentory style, which kinds of grounds it in a reality. we were trying to find a ballence between the fairytale elements and the ganre elements- the scarier elements, the horror stuff"- Black Swan Featureette: Production and Aronofsky, Youtube.


Nina's final performance- as the black swan. in this scene she now accepts who she is and what she has turned into- she finds that this transformation makes her 'perfect'.

 Black Swan has managed to take an old ballet- Swan Lake and make it into a new version of the film without staying too far from the routes, with added darkness and the sence of paranoia in the character as she is turning from the fragile White sawn to the darker Black swan in the end, playing out her role 'pefectly'