Black Swan vs White Swan

Rating: 10/10 (29 April 2012)

What I was expecting when I decided to finally watch Black Swan was a typical movie about a ballerina trying to get a lead role in a production and she gets it in the end with a lot of hard work. I surprised when I discovered the film was really much more than that, it really was about a Nina played by Natalie Portman trying to find the bad in herself to play both black and white swan in her ballet company's production, when really the bad was there all along, but probably suppressed by the need of wanting to be good and perfect. Her mother Erica played by Barbara Hershey was a "dance mom" and in an attempt to live out her unfounded dance aspirations through her daughter pushes her hard to be perfect. Early in the film its discovered Nina scratches herself, which is another indication it's the bad in her trying to get out. So the theme of film in my opinion is don't sacrifice yourself to be perfect. Thomas Leroy played by Vincent Cassel and Lily played by Mila Kunis attempt to get the bad and less self controlled side out of her so she can embrace the role of the black swan, but they don't realize it would result in such a drastic change in Nina. Another film with a similar theme that comes to my mind is in the movie, The Devil Wears Prada where Anne Hathaway who plays Andy in the film sacrifices everything she held dear in her life such as her boyfriend and friends to become the perfect assistant to Miranda Priestley the head of a runway magazine. In the end, she realizes what seemed perfect was not really perfect for her. I believe the black swan acts as a symbol to represent Nina's dark side that is trying get out. The alternating of light to dark depending on what side of Nina's personality is being portrayed just adds to the suspense of the movie. In the beginning everything is done in a lot of natural lighting and Nina seems more normal, but after she gets the part the scenes become darker and darker as she become the Black Swan and in Nina's mind she becomes perfect, which to me means she became who she really was all along.