It's a perfect thrill, and it's about the tragedy of a perfectionist.

Rating: 10/10 (22 June 2012)

The director of a brilliant film "Requiem for a Dream", Darren Aronofsky has directed another psycho thriller, "Black Swan." The story is about a young woman, Nina (Natalie Portman), who belongs to a New York ballet company, and lives with her mother who is a former ballerina, placing a hope in Nina to become the Swan Queen. When the director, Thomas (Vincent Cassel), chooses Nina as the new prima ballerina for their new season, and Swan Lake, Nina starts being driven into a corner by the fear of immeasurable pressure to play a perfect role on the stage and the competition against other ballerinas. As the Swan Queen, Nina is required to play both the White Swan which is innocent and fragile, and the Black Swan which is seductive and has sensual guile. Whilst Thomas likes Nina's talent as the White Swan, he also wants Nina to become a personification challenge while playing the Black Swan, like Lily (Mila Kunis), who is an alternate for the Swan Queen role, and is more of a party girl with a fun attitude. Along with Nina's twisted interactions with her over-parenting mother, Lily as a competitor and considerate friend, Beth who is the former Swan Queen (Winona Ryder) and is being corrupted herself after her replacement in the role of the Swan Queen, and Thomas, Nina suffers between her perfectionism as the Swan Queen and mental obfuscation with a self-destructive face due to the pressure.
As the story progresses, the fear and confusion that Nina keeps holding reaches a peak. It seems like she is almost unable to play the Swan role because of her confusion, but at the same time her perfectionism of playing the Swan Queen arouses her emotions and makes her toe loops precise. The fact that no one can help Nina makes her situation worsen. It somehow reminds me of "Requiem for a Dream", where two young people fall in love and become addicted to drugs, meaning the situation is "hopeless."
"Black Swan" is a great story and a well-depicted sense of pressure and fear. I wonder if this film gives a different impression between men and women, since the emotional feeling towards pressure would be different.