Posted on Tuesday, 8 February 2011

BLACK SWAN (Aronofsky, 2010, CIN) - This is kind of a placeholder for now: I watched this last Sunday, and I plan to write much more later. Suffice it to say that this might not be the most subtle movie (endless mirrorings - ‘cos see, we’re all battling ourselves, and Nina has an, aherm, ‘itch’ that she clearly has to scratch, etc.), but it worked for me, on several levels. It got under my skin, perhaps because in Nina I see a part of myself I despise - the part that scotches herself to the window, making herself as small as possible, when a man sits besides her in the train and invades her personal space, the part that has trouble being assertive, the part that cries too easily and, yes, is a scratcher and worrier and nail biter - and I’ve made the mistake of idolizing some Lilies (though without the associated sex or murder fantasies), wishing I could be more relaxed and brash and outgoing. The movie of course takes this docile/assertive dichotomy and superimposes the classic virgin/whore one (though the former is usually less vilified), which is a bit tired, really, but these are enough asides and parentheses for now. 

BLACK SWAN (Aronofsky, 2010, CIN) - This is kind of a placeholder for now: I watched this last Sunday, and I plan to write much more later. Suffice it to say that this might not be the most subtle movie (endless mirrorings - ‘cos see, we’re all battling ourselves, and Nina has an, aherm, ‘itch’ that she clearly has to scratch, etc.), but it worked for me, on several levels. It got under my skin, perhaps because in Nina I see a part of myself I despise - the part that scotches herself to the window, making herself as small as possible, when a man sits besides her in the train and invades her personal space, the part that has trouble being assertive, the part that cries too easily and, yes, is a scratcher and worrier and nail biter - and I’ve made the mistake of idolizing some Lilies (though without the associated sex or murder fantasies), wishing I could be more relaxed and brash and outgoing. The movie of course takes this docile/assertive dichotomy and superimposes the classic virgin/whore one (though the former is usually less vilified), which is a bit tired, really, but these are enough asides and parentheses for now. 

Notes