When the lights came up at the conclusion of the film, I hid my runny nose in a white tissue under the guise of a common cold so that no one would suspect me of being too emotional and I could not get home fast enough to write a review, which I seldom do.
From the beginning, a man's head was in my direct line of vision and two chatty old ladies behind me were telling one another irritating versions of how they arrived to the Pavillion through the remnants of a mammoth urban snowfall. The guy next to me subtly offered his share of the armrest which I politely declined, but appreciated his acknowledgement of this sliver of personal space in an otherwise crowded room.
Black Swan tormented me nearly as much as its torn cuticles tormented the guy next to me. The only scene that horrified him more was when Mila Kunis ripped off Natalie Portman's underwear, which I did not mind. The two beautiful A-listers were like chocolate covered pretzels, savory and sweet, and still I was uneasy as if climbing a mountain at high altitude.
Darren Aronofsky artfully muses through Vincent Cassel's character about the ability to let go to achieve perfection, to lift the boundaries and become ethereal, to achieve an outer body experience so powerful it shakes those who witness it like the Old Testament. To the artist, this quest is to reach a peak higher than Mount Everest.
Then like a bolt of lightning the strange music takes over like Hunter Thompson's prose and the triumphant transformation from white swan to black swan and back again makes every cell in my body ecstatic, moving me to tears which I insist is merely a cold and the astonishing Natalie Portman pulls off a magical feat: to be lost in a moment we can not describe, to be a vessel of energy more powerful than our own, to be perfect.
Accolades will fall like flowers on the stage during this film's run, but I dare not watch it again as a perfect moment is fleeting while it's memory is indelible.
From the beginning, a man's head was in my direct line of vision and two chatty old ladies behind me were telling one another irritating versions of how they arrived to the Pavillion through the remnants of a mammoth urban snowfall. The guy next to me subtly offered his share of the armrest which I politely declined, but appreciated his acknowledgement of this sliver of personal space in an otherwise crowded room.
Black Swan tormented me nearly as much as its torn cuticles tormented the guy next to me. The only scene that horrified him more was when Mila Kunis ripped off Natalie Portman's underwear, which I did not mind. The two beautiful A-listers were like chocolate covered pretzels, savory and sweet, and still I was uneasy as if climbing a mountain at high altitude.
Darren Aronofsky artfully muses through Vincent Cassel's character about the ability to let go to achieve perfection, to lift the boundaries and become ethereal, to achieve an outer body experience so powerful it shakes those who witness it like the Old Testament. To the artist, this quest is to reach a peak higher than Mount Everest.
Then like a bolt of lightning the strange music takes over like Hunter Thompson's prose and the triumphant transformation from white swan to black swan and back again makes every cell in my body ecstatic, moving me to tears which I insist is merely a cold and the astonishing Natalie Portman pulls off a magical feat: to be lost in a moment we can not describe, to be a vessel of energy more powerful than our own, to be perfect.
Accolades will fall like flowers on the stage during this film's run, but I dare not watch it again as a perfect moment is fleeting while it's memory is indelible.
