A timeless & poignant thriller that is almost nonchalant in manner !!!

Rating: 9/10 (20 February 2011)

After an incredibly inexplicable wait, "Black Swan" finally saw the light of the day here in Malaysian theaters and I could not have missed it for the world. As a religion, I queued up infront of the Box Office, where I represented the first patron of the day and the theater barely 1/3rd filled, made it to the first show on a Saturday morning. With the large portion of the next 2 hours spent at the awe of what I experienced, I could finally sum up the pieces of my blown out mind as I sit to write this piece.
3 specific names associated with the premise meant; it tagged along itself the rather heavyweight of all downers some like to call "expectations". French film giant Vincent Cassel, Natalie Portman and Darren Aaronofsky who most recently was celebrated for his violent yet heart breaking projection and Mickey Rourke's comeback vehicle "The Wrestler". Add to that 5 Oscar noms, 3 of which are for Best Leading Actress (Portman), Best Picture and Best Director and You have Yourself a list of sorts, that pretty much dictates to You why You should spend a well earned weekend morning inside the theaters.
Black Swan is a fairly straight forward story of a ballet dancer and her evolution into a foray She was particularly destined to fail at. Thus it brings along her struggle, fights within her boundaries, reasons and contradicting perspective of pretty much everything She was always led to believe. Throw in some exceptionally well written characters, in the form of her Mom (Baraba Hershey), Mentor (Cassel), Peer (Mila Kunis) and Predecessor (Winona Ryder) around the protagonist that helps her development and along with the eventual narration of the story. All support staff of the production and the one at the helm of all affairs should be given special mention for building a rare mood that aggravated the tension and only added to the crescendo of climax built with a rare but dedicated eye for soul. That for me managed to do what no feature film has been able to do in the past few months. I shed a tear at the climax for it was that epic height that one achieves, specially in creative spheres after weeks, months and years of inspired but relentless and mostly fruitless perseverance.
Quite fittingly the movie ends on a deafening sound of a hair raising round of applause by an auditorium filled with patrons who witnessed one of the finest renditions of the "done to death" opera "Swan Lake" because only they knew what they had experienced was both rare and timeless. Sadly the same cannot be said of the theater I watched the movie in, but as lights came on and credits rolled, I rose on my trembled feet and my heart swelled with the sense of fulfillment only a 35mm story can bring to me. And that's just how I would love to spend all my Saturday mornings for the rest of my life !!!
Highly Recommended