Swan Lake is the Life Cycle

Rating: 9/10 (18 December 2010)

The Black Swan is the type of movie that you are shocked at how it will illicit so many emotions considering you either know the story before hand or within the first 2 minutes of the film. The themes, symbolism, and story are laid out for you and even though you know what's around every turn you can't get out of the way of the basic human notions that are within each and every one of us. A Swan is born into innocence, loses it's innocence along the way, and finds it again only in death.
Miss Portman's character Nina can no more escape her natural progression to become the Black Swan any more than she could escape becoming ,Miss Ryder's character, Beth. Nina's scratching of her skin was the Black Swan trying to escape the prison within. Nina was trapped in a series of motions (as we all are) with Nina's progression to become the exact same as Beth's. Mr. Cassel's character Thomas is the constant. He is God, or the Devil or both in every character's world. Pulling on the strings that make the dancers dance and tugs on the strings of Nina's mind and innocence. Referring to Nina with the same affection reserved for the once great Beth.
There are often comparisons between Nina and Ms. Kunis character, Lily, as Nina being the White Swan and Lily the Black Swan. I think in many ways Lily with her free spirit had an innocence in her deviance, her carefree approach and lust for life was certainly unjaded. She had more difficulty losing the blackness to play the white than Nina did losing the white to play the black.
Mr. Aronofsky likes to remind us of the duality of people. The strength and power of the mind vs it's fragility, as he did in Pi. Black Swan, the Wrestler, and Requiem for a Dream look at life through simple and yet complex glasses with the same frailty and power that take place through self image and desire.
What better conscience is there than one's mother and Ms. Hershey's character is one that played the role well. She had power and became powerless just as one is to nature. Nina must destroy the hand that protects her and keeps her from evolving.
I saw this movie with my wife and we discussed it at length, where she wondered did this scene really happen or did that scene "really" happen. "None of it was relevant yet it was all relevant", I stated. It is the fact that none of it was inescapable, which goes back to the beginning. We all knew what would happen yet we try to figure out the mystery and feel if we can save Nina we can save ourselves, yet we also can deduce (and take solace) that salvation is inevitable.