Black Swan
Directed by: Darren Aronofsky
Written by: Mark Heyman, Andres Heintz, & John J. McLaughlin
Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, and Barbara Hershey
Perfection: chased to the elegant stage by way of the not-so-elegant back rooms. That is the goal viewers watch Nina (Natalie Portman) hurt, bleed, and dance, dance, dance toward in Darren Aronofsky’s hallucinatory Black Swan.
Aronofsky, fast becoming one of American cinema’s brightest renegades and fiercest visionaries, has never been shy about making you feel his characters’ pain. By removing all distance between you and them by rapid cutting and frantic pacing, you feel a kinetic connection to their turmoil.