Black Swan, simply put, is a beautiful film. It has a subdued colour scheme of mostly blacks and whites, it features recurring motifs of swans and some sort of reflection appears in energy every scene. Matthew Libatique, the director of photography, deserves a lot of credit. As does Clint Mansell, for composing yet another amazing film score. It's dark and twisted recreation of the music of Swan Lake is powerful, and fits the film perfectly. Well should fit it anyway. Unfortunately when the characters speak the beauty of film stops. The language they use is vulgar and ugly, and doesn't match real speech at all. And the story is pretty much a joke as well. Rather than making a tense psychological thriller, Darren Aronofsky has made a cliched horror film, which the audience should be able to guess every single twist.
This film was meant to be Natalie Portman's best role, and I would love to report this was true. In fact before I saw the film I thought the fact that ballerinas were getting cross at the fact that she isn't a ballerina was ridiculous. I thought "The main part has to be someone who can act.". But the truth be told a ballerina could of done it with ease. This isn't some complex role, it's just a run of the mill horror character. All she has to do is cry, squeal and occasionally get angry.
On an up note though, some of the scenes stuck with me for a while, and it does have some haunting elements. But ultimately it's a disappointing cocktail of Vincent Price and high art.
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