Innocent & Sweet, Seductive & Cruel

Rating: 8/10 (23 February 2016)

Watching this movie made me thing of Whiplash(2014) another movie where a young talented artist strive to achieve greatness and in the process of doing so, gets pushed well beyond any limits they might have. In Black Swan we are introduced to Nina Sayers, a very young and very talented ballet dancer, whom, by the strict supervision of her mother strive towards perfection on the ballet scene.
Responsible for a new production of "Swan Lake" is Thomas Leroy, and when Nina is auditioning for the lead part of the ballet, it becomes obvious for Thomas that the fragile and innocent Nina is a perfect match for dancing the part of the white swan. But to complete the entire show, sweet Nina will also have to dance the part of the black swan, a ruthless, seductive creature. Relentlessly rehearsing for the part, Nina is introduced to a new girl on the set, Lily, a girl who is everything Nina is not. As a strange relationship develops between the two girls, Nina starts to embrace the darkness and slowly gives in to the lusts and temptations lurking inside her.
Dreams slowly turn into daydreams that turn into hallucinations, a creeping sense of paranoia emerges as her personalities slowly split, and the more she lets the darkness take her, the more her sanity fades away. And when the show is on, and the final act is done, it becomes agonizingly obvious that there is now nothing she won't do for perfection
Black Swan is in its story as predictable as it is shocking, in my mind it is both breathtakingly beautiful and horribly ugly, and it leaves itself as innocent & sweet as it is seductive & cruel.