Black Swan

Darren Aronofsky has had an extremely interesting, if somewhat limited, career. He started out with the ultra-low budget PI, which got the attention of the indie film world. He followed that up with the devastating Requiem For A Dream, which garnered him critical acclaim and made the world take notice. He took years to come back with his personal pet project, The Fountain, which, while an interesting idea, couldn't stand up to his previous efforts. He came back with The Wrestler, which proved to also be a come back for its star, Mickey Rourke, and now brings us his fifth feature in 12 years, Black Swan.

Black Swan stars Natalie Portman as perfectionist ballerina, Nina. When the senior dancer of the company, played by Winona Ryder, is forced into retirement, the leader of the company, Thomas Leroy (played by Vincent Cassel) chooses Nina to be the lead in his production of The Black Swan. As Leroy challenges Nina during the rehearsal process, he brings on Lily (played by Mila Kunis), as an alternate who shakes up Nina's life. As the rehearsal process for the ballet continues, Nina's world begins to fall apart and she has a more difficult time separating reality from fiction.

Black Swan is hard to nail down. I liked the last twenty to thirty minutes of it, but the first two thirds of the film felt like a hard mess. Pretty much all of the main characters are extremely one dimensional, to a point where you get bored with them, and the only thing that keeps all of it going is the fantasies that Nina keeps having. Aranofsky borrows a lot of technique that he established in The Wrestler, but he used it to better result in that movie. The handheld cinematography doesn't work as well for this film. The neutral color pallet, though, was something that I did like. Aranofsky sticks, basically, to three colors throughout the film - white, black, and grey. There are other colors that show up every once in a while, but those three are the primary ingredients.

Ultimately, Black Swan feels like a film that can't decide what it wants to be. Is it trying to be a horror film or an intense psychological thriller? I think it spends way too much time trying to be both. What is real and what isn't? Normally, that question would be what makes for an interesting time, but in this film, it just makes things confusing and difficult to watch.

I wish I could speak better of the film, considering that I think that Aranofsky is one of our greatest directors, but I feel like Black Swan is trying to do to many different things, and not doing a great job at any of them.

The Wrestler

Darren Aronofsky is one of THOSE kind of filmmakers. You know the type - The filmmaker that only releases something every once in a while (whether out of necessity or preference), and when they do, you end up salivating over the very thought of it for months before it comes out, and when you do, finally, get to see it, it usually fulfills all the expectations you had for it. With The Wrestler, Aronofsky doesn't disappoint.

The Wrestler is the story of Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a one time WWF style super star, who fell out of fame, and out of money, and now subsists on working odd jobs, wrestling on the B-circuit, and the occasional convention, where he sells memorabilia and autographs. He is a man with an undying passion, a passion that he is so dedicated too, he lets all other things in his life go by the way side.  But, when the Ram starts facing undeniable health problems, he begins to realize that he may not have as much time ahead of him as he thought, and now, in his middle age, it may be time to right some of the wrongs of his life and leave wrestling behind.

Mickey Rourke does an amazing job as The Ram. You sense every ounce of pain and nostalgia for his previous life seeping out of Robinson because of the parallels between The Ram's story and Rourke's own. Marisa Tomei is electric as the aging stripper who decides to take a chance on letting this lonely, broken man into her life, and Evan Rachel Wood is undeniable as Ram's daughter, who was abandoned in her youth, and who Ram is trying to rebuild his relationship with.

Aronofsky is a character guy. He's one of the best there is. He brings these people to life so fully and so realistically, that you never once feel like one is there simply to push the plot along. I mean, let's face it, the plot of The Wrestler is not exactly anything new, but Aronofsky builds his film in such a meaningful and heartfelt way that it doesn't matter. You feel like your meeting these characters for the first time, and you are sucked into their world. The Wrestler is beautiful - In the way it's acted, in the way it's directed, in the way it's shot. In every way, it is a must see.