It Was Perfect

Rating: 9/10 (1 January 2011)

The little girl in "Leon: The Professional" (1994) has grown up now. Natalie Portman is at her peak performance so far. Team up with heavy caliber Director Darren Aronofsky, they made a beautiful story but horrifying at the same time. Aronofsky is invincible, especially when he explores human desperation, like in his previous films "Requiem for a Dream" (2000), "The Fountain" (2006) and "The Wrestler" (2008). For about 100 minutes of the movie, I felt like I was experiencing the theater performance, not just like a common movie. It's filled with beautiful images and great orchestra. Nina (Portman) is a chosen ballerina to fulfil her dual roles all at once, to be irresistible innocent white swan and also to become seductive evil black swan. Slowly but sure, the darker side of black swan absorbs her real life. I love the brilliant cinematography. Aronofsky seems to use two techniques of camera work. The first is for the long shot, he uses steady conventional method. And the second for the close up, he utilizes shaky hand-held camera. I have ever said before that hand-held camera is modern technique in today cinematic world. Not only for action, but recently for drama as well, hand-held camera is able to effectively drag you into the middle of ongoing situation, if you are not using hand-held camera, you are outdated now. The performers are effectively suitable. Vincent Cassel is fit for provocative and ambitious ballet instructor. Mila Kunis is fit for seductive and ambitious Nina's colleague. Barbara Hershey is fit for authoritarian and ambitious mother. And even a brief but impressive appearance by Winona Ryder as anxious and ambitious competitor. Yeah, it is all about the ambition and you can see it in each character. All of them have their own ambition. However, the star of all stars above is Portman. She shows her darker side successfully, you could literally feel her pain, pressure and paranoia situation. The movie becomes more mysterious with some unusual sex scenes. For the last half hour of film duration, she drives us into beautiful but ironic condition, sometimes absurdity become the part of it. Those last scenes are extremely terrifying, with broken fingernail, peeling skin and fractured bone for the elements. I almost could categorize thiz movie as a horror movie. The movie emphasizes in every beauty of ballet, there is a dark side that we never know before. Finally, I just want to say, "It was perfect".
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