Its Hollywood Hype time

Rating: 3/10 (31 January 2011)

Went on a bit of a whim to see this as it had a good writeup in the local independent cinema, but it was a complete comedown - maybe I shouldn't watch so many DVDs, as it compared so poorly with one I'd seen the day before called "Waterlilies" which had French synchronised swimmers where "Black Swan" had New York ballerinas, and was so much better it's almost insulting. BS (as I will appropriately abbreviate) was overblown, over-hyped, poorly scripted and reliant on a constant bang-bang-bang of clichés and frenetic camera rushing about (usually just behind the heroine's head). And if I ever see another "symbolic" mirror in a film I may throw up - there was hardly a scene without one. One of your other reviewers mentions "Repulsion" as a reference point, which got me as well, and just showed how much that particular film succeeded by understatement. I really don't understand why this film is seen as a shoo-in for multiple Oscars - Natalie Portman acts well enough and Vincent Cassel manages to be Anton Walbrook from the "Red Shoes" up to a point, but the film otherwise relies totally on cliché and isn't even as well directed as some auteurist reviewers seem to think. By the end I really didn't care whether Natalie was hallucinating or the events were actually happening - the film would not have suffered any more either way. If the Oscar selectors are mainly prurient teenagers looking for an undemanding mixture of dull sex and ersatz culture (even Tchaikowsky is played too loudly!) this year, then this film will indeed win a few.