Bringing an Experimental Style to the Masses

Rating: 9/10 (17 March 2014)

I thought this film was very significant because, Darren Aronofsky, being the highly-educated man that he is, takes little bits and pieces from other great directors and films. He takes obviously some clichés from The Red Shoes, which seems intentional to me. He even takes some from David Lynch, in the way that he uses sound and sound effects and music in general. The sort of oddness of it, or way that it gets its scares across is rather Lynchian as well. Instead of using the over-used Jump Scare, he builds to the shock, using a very, very well-constructed storyline to get there. And then there is Natalie Portman's performances. Jesus Christ, Lord almighty, what a performance. Natalie creates this very believable, highly-protected, little-girl psychopath type of character and executes it to death. She can go from being a little harmless, very sexually afraid little girl, to a true monster. Some of the instances using Tchaikovsky's music are just so MOVING. Words cannot describe. One of the final scenes of the film, after Natalie stabs Mila Kunis' character and goes on to dance as the Black Swan with the music from Act III No.18 of Swan Lake, I can't even describe in words the emotion that comes as a result from that. One of my favorite films of the 21st-century