Black Swan is marketed - or was (??) marketed - as a 2010 American psychological thriller/horror film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman of Star Wars fame. But as a critic one has to see the film for what it really is: an incredibly awful and pompous remake of Kubrick's The Shining. Granted, The Shining is perhaps not the best cinema has to offer. Still it is everything this film is not: it is moving, funny, intellectual, spooky, and genuinely disturbing. The Shining can be seen as a deep reflection of the violence of man against man and a subtle commentary on the American Holocaust against the Indian population.
Black Swan, in contrast, is a cheap and unbelievably stupid attempt to be a pornographic retelling of the werewolf legend. Just about every scene in the film is lifted from far superior horror films. Portman plays a dedicated ballet dancer who steadily goes crazy (why????). She meets a couple of guys called Tom and Jerry ... get it? Twins. And then there's Kunis and Portman ... more twins.
Like those twins in the ... Shining. Even when playing homage Aronofsky is being pathetic. Portman in one scene masturbates to her mirror image. But the power of the Shining is one didn't NOTICE the mirrors in the Overlook Hotler until AFTER repeated viewings. Certainly, Black Swann isn't scary. It's too dumb to do that. It also isn't even artistic. There is a huge controversy that Portman didn't perform most of the dancing in the film. But why bother or care?? If the film is derivative then isn't it consistent to have Portman fake being a dancer? And why would a dancer turn into a wereworlf much less a Swan-wolf or a were-Swan. It's an open question whether Aronofsky is talented or not but this film is so unbelievably shoddy the money and deceit behind it are a scandal. That the man who made pi thinks this is cinema is an added travesty. NOT RECOMMENDED.
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