Stunning. Scary.

Rating: 10/10 (31 March 2013)

Powerful. Stunning. Scary. Stupid, ignorant, jealous has-been wannabe ballerina mother. This mother smothers. She dresses Nina like she is an infant. I wondered if the mother has sexual designs on the daughter. She tucks her daughter into bed. The daughter is a four-year veteran of an urban ballet company, going from the corps-de-ballet to apparently superstar status, but the mother whines, cries, coddles, torments and emotionally blackmails Nina.
Nina must have been off the deep end from the beginning. All the violence, blood and nightmarish scenes were from the intense pressure under which she toiled. Thomas was an arrogant S.O.B., who hoped to awaken Nina's repressed sexuality, but this passage was marked by Nina's imagined lezzie-wet-dream. This "dream" propelled Nina to get into the black swan personality, and IMO her eye makeup as well as costuming were stunning, not to mention the black wings and bow/curtsey she takes as the triumphant Black Swan.
I do love dance movies. If the principal actresses were not technically lifelong-trained ballerinas, this is the movies, folks. Yes, professionals did the actual long-shot dancing. Yes, the facial closeups were of the principals. This is "movie magic". Stuntpersons have long had a corner on this market.
Nina's descent into madness was painful to watch. Was this further exacerbated by the drug pills, or was this part just another foray into Nina's troubled psyche? I even thought Nina would commit violence against Dear Old Mama. Exactly what was that big dark club for? Surely Mama's big mouth could have been shut up permanently; Mama was just itchin' for a big slammin' in the pie hole.
The Red Shoes: Vicky becomes #1 Cheese when Russian ballerina storms off to get married. Vicky is loved by the director, but he is gay. Vicky has replaced the prima ballerina, and Nina smacks of this. Nina has won the prize of Swan Queen, but is greeted by "WHORE" written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror. Is this real, or in her mind? It's hard to tell, in "Black Swan". Nina has won this big prize, but we are soon set up for the jealousies and nasty comments to follow. Nina has to look over her shoulder a lot...... Was one of the bar guys the Mad Hatter from "Once Upon A Time"?
More Red Shoes: Vicky puts on the red pointe shoes, in the play within a play, and all of a sudden the shoes control her outside life. The shoes make her dance to her death, as she falls off a parapet onto the tracks of an oncoming train. Nina is obsessed; Swan Queen controls her life. She will kill, to keep her part. At least, we think so. Maybe the one she killed was herself, because in the end a shard of glass in her abdomen has caused tons of bleeding. She lies on the mattress underneath a white ceiling. Is she dead? Is she in Heaven? Is she going there soon?