#fucking swans

[satanseemslikeatop]

I was far too close for comfort for this and it isn't even in focus

[adiscoveredcountry]

Just realized that with the tumblr I made for my teacher, she follows me and I tag everything with a varient of "fuck"

[witchpunk]

is there an app for channeling rampant nihilistic melancholy 

[lissmoaks]

"Swan rescued after wandering onto student accommodation in Lincoln" 

this is seriously the most interesting thing that has happened around here lately

[fattransghast]

SCREAMING LOUDLY I'M REALLY GLAD NO ONE IS HOME

[tyrannosaurme]

ALL OF THE WATER METAPHORS

ALL OF THEM

[cosmicsoup-blog-blog]

Black Swan: bitch goes batshit in a tutu.

It was brilliant and I've got a lot to say about it. I've seen all of Darren Aronofsky's movies, except for the Wrestler, and I'm a huge fan. The soundtrack was done by Clint Mansel and the twist he puts on Tchaikovsky's music worked so well with the scenes. It was beautifully shot and the acting was superb. There is a lot of violence, mutilation and hot sex (unfortunately, no nudity) , so that made it all the more great. I haven't read any reviews of it, so these are all my own thoughts, but first the story.  

All Nina cares about is dancing perfectly and harbors no ill intent. The tension instantaneously rises as Nina is waiting for her private audition with dance instructor Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cansell). She encounters Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder), the former swan who is hateful and destructive and represents the Black Swan. Nina is scared of Beth, but looks to her as an inspiration. Nina embodies the White Swan who is virtuous and delicate, but is lacking the fierceness required to play both. The White Swan dies for the lost love stolen by the evil Black Swan. Nina needs to unleash her inner beast to portray the Black Swan, who is cunning and evil. Thomas expects nothing but perfection, but encourages her to let herself go sexually. She is too tense and uptight to form any meaningful relationships, so when Lily (Mila Kunis) tries to befriend her, paranoia causes Nina to imagine sadistic and sexual thoughts of Lily. Her frigidness causes her to lose control and soon nothing in her life is perfect and reality turns into fantasy.

Sheltered by her obsessive mother, Nina finds little escape and the White Swan's only freedom will be in death. The Black Swan begins to take hold over Nina's mind and inflicts harm on herself. Nina feels guilt for Beth's madness and decides to return some things she had left behind in her dressing room. Nina tells Beth that she wanted to be perfect like her. Beth says that she is nothing and stabs herself with a metal nail file repetively. Nina's nerves cause her to mess up the White Swans first dance. The curtains close and Nina knows that she is at the breaking point. In her dressing room she sees a hallucination of Lily and imagines that she stabs her with a mirror shard when she actually has stabbed herself. She doesn't realize and changes into the Black Swan costume. The Black Swan dances wickedly and takes over Nina's body and she finds a release in her perfection, which is also her death. Nina goes back into the dressing room to change into the White Swan and pulls out the shard, which is a mortal wound. Bleeding, Nina goes back and dances her last dance and gracefully dies.

It was open to interpretation and could be confusing at times. One thing I'm not sure about is why Beth harbors so much hatred toward Nina. Thomas acknowledges that Beth was a great dancer, but somehow Beth couldn't get any satisfaction without being a destructive bitch. One idea I have is that Thomas suggests to Beth that she should consider retiring, so she unwillingly retires and for this she resents Thomas and has a seething jealousy of Nina who is young and new. This movie shows the destructive aspects of love, for people and art. How much of yourself are you able to give to what you love?

I found the last scene to be very interesting symbolically. The White Swan stands bleeding on a cliff before the sun soon to fall to her death. The sun is mostly empty and I think it symbolizes Nina's emptiness. Visually it was stunning. I highly reccomend seeing this.