A journey into a higher plane

Rating: 9/10 (23 April 2011)

Darren Aronofsky's 'Black Swan' is among many things a tribute to balley, that fine art that does not touch the lives of most of us that comprise the hoi polloi, the common milieu, that revels and indulges in the mediocre and the mundane, and has steadily lost touch the finer aspects of civilization. And that's not all, of course not. It's also a journey into an artist's mind, a discovery of the dark side, not just for the protagonist, but for the audience too, into their own. Natalie Portman's Nina shall stay in the inner recesses of the mind for the rest of your life, as she not only discovers the cygnus atratus in her during the course of the film but almost gets the same release too.
In the inevitable comparison with his other films, it pleases one to find a brilliant director adding to an already formidable oeuvre of movies like 'Pi', 'The Fountain', and the 'Wrestler'. 'Black Swan' is without doubt Aronofsky's finest till date. The technical aspects of the film are first-rate, the characterization absolutely apt, the editing tight, the cinematography brilliantly succeeding at the introspection of the dark side of one's character. The quality of the lighting and the sound forces one to get into the mood, and feel the character's pain, both and real and imagined. Tchaikovsky's 'Swan Lake' is rendered in a beautiful manner, with the composition seamlessly melding into the background, rising and falling in a cadence, making for a heady and memorable experience. This is required viewing for every lover of grade-A cinema, and in doing so it forces one to think about the pedestrian nature of most oft the other movies released this year. That to my mind could be the only negative for the movie.