Black Swan

In his last film Darren Aronofsky explored the harsh world of wrestling. Now he explores the equally harsh world of ballet.

I will admit that I enjoy watching dancing but I am not a big fan of ballet. Mostly because I do not understand it. I've only been once when I was very young and probably too young to understand it. Not much has changed. I've never been much good at interpreting body language which is what ballet is all about. Luckily though it did not stop me from enjoying this film. Much like wrestling in 'The Wrestler', the ballet in this film is only a backdrop to what is really happening to a character. From what I understand an appreciation of the ballet 'Swan Lake' would help to understand the film better but I've not seen it and it did not stop me from enjoying the film. Darren does a brilliant job of directing this film that leaves you constantly guessing about the sanity of Nina. We never know what is real and what is not. This can make for some very disturbing imagery but Darren was never one to shy away from being confronting.

I don't know what it is about actresses recently but so many of them are giving such brilliant performances. Many are better than men. This is very true of Natalie Portman. This performance is not only the best in the film but one of the best ever. Simply astonishing. Not only does she have to deal with the mental stability of her character but learn ballet as well and all the difficulties that come with that. Mila Kunis is nicely proving herself to be an excellent actress too. Moving away from Jackie on 'That 70's Show'. She has mostly done comedy so it is good to see her stretch herself with drama. Vincent Cassel does a good job of playing his usual sleazy Frenchman. Barbara Hershey we sadly don't get to see much of lately so it is a pleasure to see her, especially when she is this good.

As long as you don't go in expecting a nice ballet movie then you should appreciate this brilliant film with one of the best performances ever.