The annoyance of madness

Rating: Null/10 (18 March 2011)

Dominatrix mom + unstable girl + sexual inhibition + a pathological desire for perfection = psychiatric disaster.
I was left with an undecipherable feeling after watching this movie. I took about two hours for me to define this feeling: pure annoying, with some gloomy tint. The movie itself is kind of well crafted, and definitely well acted, but the way in which story unfolds is just annoying, and the main character's descent into madness, although linear, is ... (can I use the same word again?) annoying. There is something about this movie I don't really understand. Why is the story embedded in the context of ballet? The same story could easily fit in any other context: a scientist's descent into madness, a student's descent into madness, a security guard's descent into madness, a cop's descent into madness, a painter's descent into madness, a musician descent into madness... you name it. In some way, this movie is not compact, but glued, I mean, the ballet thing is kind of gratuitous. I get suspicious when I see a story glued to a context, when there's not natural unity. This kind of movies usually have a cocky message. "Hey, we know about ballet, about art, about philosophy of art, we are an elite, we have been in art school, and we know what peasants don't know". "If you don't like this art-tinted movie, you are an ignorant" "If you like it, then you know about art". What is the point anyways? Do you wanna make a movie, or you just wanna show your knowledge about ballet? You can throw art commentaries in the story, you can embed the story in an art context, but does this mean that the movie itself is art?