Black Swan

Released today was the trailer for one of the more talked about films coming out this year, Black Swan. I think one of the reasons people are so abuzz about this is because nobody knows what to expect. It's being billed as a psychological thriller, but Darren Aronofsky films (Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, Pi) don't usually hold back any punches, so who knows what to expect from this.




The trailer itself is really good if you ask me, it gets you wondering about what's going on without giving all that much away. I like that you don't even really know that this could a genre film until about halfway through, with her reflection in the mirror. The whole elaborateness of dance costuming and big stage productions is hinted on a bit here and I'm excited to see if they take that anywhere near the realm of Eyes Wide Shut, which in my opinion boasted one of the scariest scenes of recent memory. And that wasn't even a horror film.

Come to think of it, this trailer did indeed give me a Kubrick-y kind of vibe. 

I think the subject matter here could end up lending the film a really eerie quality, long sweeping shots of the dancers moving to deep, orchestral music. The whole thing starts to look a little alien if you know what I mean, people aren't used to seeing stuff like that and I think it could be employed to great effect here.

Movies where the audience is left wondering whether the main character is going crazy can turn out to be pretty good (like Jacob's Ladder) or kind of bad (say The Uninvited) but I really do hope that Aronofsky has lent this story a certain drama and weight that could really prove quite interesting.

Some of the imagery is pretty intense too (Natalie Portman's character in the trailer's last scene) so visually, it looks like we might be in for something really unique. On that topic, here's the poster released today as well.

I like Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and Winona Ryder (though she is conspicuously absent from the trailer) and Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream is one of my favourite movies) so I'm excited for this.

I wonder about the significance of this line, which opens the trailer: "I had the craziest dream last night, about a girl who turns into a swan, but her prince falls for the wrong girl. She killed herself."

Could they be so brazen as to have put the entire plot out there? Natalie Portman's Nina is "turned" into a swan for the company production of Swan Lake. "Her prince" played by Vincent Cassell, is the director of the company. The "prince" falls for the wrong girl, Mila Kunis' Lily, and Nina ends up killing herself.

I could be reading too much into this, but that's what we do on this blog.

XOXO

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