Black Swan

Darren Aronofsky, 2010 (8.4*)
Natalie Portman is aspiring ballerina Nina Sayers, vying for the lead role in a New York ballet company's season opening performance of Swan Lake. The company's director, Vincent Cassel, is retiring their current star, Wynona Ryder, due to age, and he wants to move into a bold, new direction. He tells Nina she is the perfect white swan, but that her competition, a new dancer named Lily (Mila Kunis) is the perfect black swan, and he needs someone who can be both. He urges Nina to get in touch with her sensual side, which he can't see in her rehearsals, telling her she must become more intuitive, and lose herself in the role, unaware that this may send Nina over the edge in a leap into the void of madness.

Her mother, Barbara Hershey, is a former ballerina herself, who gave it all up to have a child - now she wants to control and dominate Nina, hoping to avoid the mistakes she made. The result is that Nina's entire world is her dancing, she has no lovers, and seems alienated from real human contact and affection altogether. We watch her try to cross this void and literally get in touch with her body, but as she does she descends into a neurotic self-absorption that borders on complete madness. Her desire for success on the stage threatens her tenuous connection to reality. Her fantasies, particularly erotic ones, drive her dancing toward the sensual side that Cassel demands, while at the same time hindering her quest for perfection, which was probably demanded by her mother from an early age. Her move to the dark side also demands a severance from her mother's domination. Like the daugher played by Evan Rachel Wood in Thirteen, her independence and tranformation into adulthood require severing a psychic umbilical that keeps each tied to their mothers; each feels pressured to achieve their mothers' dreams and neglect their own.

Natalie Portman drew on her ballet training from ages 4-13, and resumed training a year before principal filming began, working with former New York City ballet dancer Mary Helen Bowers. Professional ballerinas Sarah Lane and Kimberly Prosa were her dance doubles. Using special effects, Natalie Portman's head was placed on Sarah Lane's body in several scenes. According to interviews with Prosa and Lane, Portman's dance scenes in full body shots were the doubles. Often Portman was shown dancing from the waist up, showing only face and arms. It's questionable how much dancing she actually did, but the result is seamless - we never question the technical aspects as we get lost in the metamorphosis of her character from the light to the dark side.

There are some disturbing images here; as usual, an Aronofsky film is not for the squeamish. There are shots of self-mutilation that will haunt viewers long after the film is complete. Perhaps they are a bit over-the-top, but may have been necessary to show the inner changes to her character. At times, it seems a little Hitchcockian, as if a demented psychotic is struggling to gain control of a professional artist whose entire lifestyle is one of self-control and discipline.

Darren Aronofsky's direction shows in how driven the main characters are in his films; they are always intense, exhausting, and riveting performances to witness. He's gotten career best performances from Ellen Burstyn in Requiem for a Dream, Rachel Weisz in The Fountain, Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, and here from Portman. His style won't ever be as popular as directors who won't take big risks, who rely more on safe, successful formulas. This is much more daring than King's Speech or The Social Network, the two films that won the most awards for best film this year. Neither of those held any surprises, telling historical stories in a typically straighforward manner that guarantees any audience can comprehend their stories. Of those two, I thought Social Network was more interesting (and also had a great music soundtrack); King's Speech just stuttered along (pun intended) with no pace.

Even though this is now ranked #73 on the IMDB top 250, a bit high to me (it will likely fall over time), it only won one award for best film of the year, at the Independent Spirit awards (where it also won for director, actress, and cinematography, while King's Speech only won foreign film there, and wasn't nominated for picture or director). Overall, it won 35 awards out of 124 nominations. Portman won 17 awards for her performance, sweeping all the big ones: Oscar, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild, and Golden Globe. Matthew Libatique's cinematography also won several awards.

Note: many complained that Kunis wasn't nominated for supporting actress, but she was bland and uninvolving and didn't deserve any awards. She was totally blown away by veterans Dale Dickey in Winter's Bone (the Indie Spirit winner), and Oscar-nominee Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom. Being young and popular doesn't equate to talent; I've yet to see any real acting from her in anything (I don't even think she's very pretty either, I just don't get all the popularity)

My favorite films from 2010 (so far, with The Fighter still to be seen..): 1-Winter's Bone, 2-Inception, 3-Toy Story 3, 4-Animal Kingdom (Australia), 5-The Social Network, 6-Black Swan, 7-The Tourist, 8-The King's Speech, 9-The Kids Are All Right
[Inception and Toy Story 3 are most likely the ones that will be rewatched the most; I've already gone back and watched Inception again, it's a very complex script]

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PI

Darren Arnofsky, 1998, bw (8.4*)
Best Directing Award, Sundance
Very interesting puzzle movie that was brilliant young director Darren Aronofsky's first film, shot in b&w and obviously on a shoestring. The film is primarily a metaphysical one, about finding a mathematical key to order in the universe. On his search, he runs across a group of mathematicians who are inputting the numeric values of the Bible's characters into a computer for analysis.

This unusual film is about thinking, about the inside of the director's cosmic thoughts. Light on action, it's about as deep in intellectualism as a film can get, searching for a hidden meaning to life and the cosmos. We all do it, but it's a tough subject to film. At any rate, it's entirely unusual and creative, and is better than many big budget films, and was shot for just 60,000. (For the champion no budget film, check out Robert Rodriguez' El Mariachi, an action film of a mariachi guitarist being mistaken for a gang's hit man who carries a guitar case full of weapons)

Aronofsky's next film after this debut was the brilliant (and mind numbing) Requiem for a Dream (2000), starring Oscar winners Ellen Burstyn and Jennifer Connelly. Also worth seeing is The Fountain, a multi-level story about a brain cancer researcher and the search for the fountain of youth. He also directed The Wrestler in 2008
Awards page at IMDB

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The Wrestler

Darren Aronofsky, 2008 (8.2*)
Golden Lion, Venice
[updated 3.15.11]
This film represented a major comeback for actor Mickey Rourke. He's come a long way since his early films like Diner., Pope of Greenwich Village, and Body Heat. In this story of an aging wrestler, Rourke gives the best performance of his career, earning an Oscar® nomination for best actor and winning 14 other awards in the process. (his awards page at IMDB, he's won 21 acting awards! Most came for this, the others for supporing actor in 2005's Sin City and Diner)

Rourke's character is a former "world champ", still with many fans, though he's now a has-been in his mid 40's, and has been beaten down by life. His friend, stripper Marisa Tomei, tries to keep him grounded and alive, but it appears to be a losing battle. Realizing he may not have many years remaining, he attempts to reconcile with his estranged daughter, played by Evan Rachel Wood, in her first big film since blowing everyone away as the star of Thirteen. It's their big scene together that allows Rourke to do some of his finest acting.

This is probably major new director Darren Aronofsky's most personal, intimate film, yet also his least creative, especially when compared to Requiem for a Dream (2000) or The Fountain (2006), or even his first film, Pi (1998). It's a story that could have easily been filmed in the 50's, perhaps by Elia Kazan or Martin Ritt, a drama about a man well past his prime, trying to decide how to spend the latter part of his life, and to right the mistakes he feels he's made before it's too late. In that regard, it has something to say to us all.

The Wrestler is now #162 all-time on the IMDB top 250, and won 30 awards overall, out of 60 nominations, including two Oscar® nominations for Rourke (actor) and Tomei (supporting actress), who won 7 awards for her performance.

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The Fountain

Darren Aronofsky, 2006 (8.8*)
This is yet another mind-bending film from the talented vision of young director Darren Aronofsky, in just his 3rd feature film, following Pi (1998), Requiem for a Dream (2000), and preceding The Wrestler (2008). His films are intensely involved in each subject, usually involving a personal obsession, and The Fountain is no different. This ambitious story takes place in three distinctly different time periods: a 16th century knight’s quest for immortality for his queen, a modern day doctor searching for a cure for brain tumors (or cancer?) to save his wife, and a futuristic space traveler taking the Tree of Life to a dying star, in a mythical quest that is rarely seen in any genre.

In each case, the man on a mission is played by Hugh Jackman, while the lady he lives for is Rachel Weisz. As his present-time wife, Izzi writes the story called The Fountain, which relates the story of the renaissance knight searching for a legendary tree of Mayan mythology, the tree of life that gives immortality to one who drinks its sap. These two stars make the film believable with their acting, but it’s Aronofky’s unrelenting vision that makes the movie both a science fiction-fantasy and a spiritual journey, perhaps the best such combination since 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968.

This unique and artistic film won’t be for all tastes, as no Aronofsky film to date has been, as he never compromises his personal vision for commerciality. I think this will make him one of the few current young directors that will rise above the crowd over time.

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Requiem for a Dream

Darren Anorofsky, 2000 (10*)

This film is without doubt the most intense movie I've ever seen – in fact, I had to take a break halfway and finish it later, one advantage of dvd over the theater. It’s a total work of art, but one that will leave you emotionally drained. It’s a story of addiction of all kinds: drugs, tv, food, hope. Ellen Burstyn, who is mind-blowing in this (and spent 4 hrs a day in makeup), her greatest performance (Oscar-nominated, it should have been her 2nd after Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore), plays Sarah Goldfarb in Brooklyn, whose only son, played by Jared Leto, routinely pawns her tv to buy drugs, and Sarah buys it back each time. She dreams of being on tv, and may get her chance on a motivational program where huckster Tappy Tibbons sells optimism that he calls "juice" for one easy payment (a thinly disguised variation of Tony Robbins?), well-played by Chrisopher MacDonald. Before that she wants to lose weight, so she finds a doctor to give her diet pills.

Her story begins to parallel her son’s, who spends time with girlfriend Jennifer Connelly, in her most demanding and best performance (I now believe her Oscar for A Beautiful Mind was due to her snub for this), and friend Marlon Wayans, who is surprisingly effective in a rare dramatic part. Anorofsky uses machine-gun fire editing, odd camera angles, blurred fast-motion sequences, and a special actor-mounted camera to create a nightmare world of dreams blurring reality for all involved. For some this was distracting, for me it totally involved the audience in a world where reality is a vaporous vision, constantly shifting until you don’t know what’s real and what is imaginary.

This film may be too shocking to watch; it likely deserves an X-rating for emotional trauma. I’m sure it scared the heck out of Hollywood; it was made with the assistance of Sundance. Traditional movigoers and filmmakers wouldn’t go near this subject, based on major American author Hubert Selby’s novel from 1978. Selby is best known for this 1964 classic Last Exit to Brooklyn, which shocked the nation, but wowed book critics, and caused an obscenity trial in England. (see below for some Selby quotes from an interview on the dvd). Director Anorofsky’s only previous film was the engrossing intellectual drama in black and white, Pi (review upcoming), about obsessed numerologists hunting for the “key to the universe” hidden in the Bible in the numeric values of Hebrew letters (!) This is major art for a second film effort, for anyone’s film effort actually. This is more intense than Tarantino, Scorsese, or Cuckoo’s Nest, and likely too intense for the average movigoer - if you enjoy Adam Sandler, or Lethal Weapon movies, you probably won’t like this. But a film this visually stunning will be studied by cinema students for decades, and is a treat for the serious film connoisseur.

Here's Roger Ebert's longer and more descriptive review in the Chicago Sun Times, he agrees that it's "adults only", unless you know a kid doing drugs:
Roger Ebert's Requiem Review

[Note: I’m giving it a 10 for its mind-blowing visuals, overcoming any story faults. The scene they’ll discuss for years is Burstyn cleaning her apt from end to end in 25 seconds of film, in super-high speed, while the camera slowly tracks past each room. This took 40 minutes and was one take; when done, Ellen was disappointed with herself and wanted to do another take. The dvd will show you how it was done. I’ll have to admit that when the film was over, I needed a drink and a walk outside, I was shaking for half an hour.]

Hubert Selby Quotes (Selby has a brief part in this as a prison guard)
“About age 8, I discovered that the world was full of pain and suffering, and I decided I had to try to end that suffering.”

“I had tb after world war two; a doctor looked me and said, ‘there’s nothing we can do for you’, walked away and sent me a bill. Man, do I love the AMA.”
(This almost killed Selby, he had a lung and 10 ribs removed, but survived. He also had brain damage during childbirth, yet has become one of the most important American authors, compared to Dostoevsky)

“The Sanskrit and Hebrew word for eye is ‘fountain’, they say we project our souls onto the world through the eye, not perceive the world outside projected inward.”

“Suffering comes from the fact that life is pain, and we refuse to accept the pain that all must experience; the worst pain will be losing one’s mother, hence ‘I feel like a motherless child.’”

“I had a spiritual experience once; during that I knew that as I’m dying I’ll think two things: first that I wasted my life, then that I’d like to live it all over – and then I’ll die.”

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