Movie poll!

[sophinisba]

Poll #5457 What movie should I go see?

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 13

View Respondents

What movie should I go see?

View Answers

Black Swan
4 (30.8%)

Tangled
4 (30.8%)

Voyage of the Dawn Treader
0 (0.0%)

The King's Speech
5 (38.5%)

True Grit
4 (30.8%)

another movie
0 (0.0%)

Don't go to a movie, do something else!
0 (0.0%)

ETA: Major spoilers for Black Swan in Dreamwidth comments, proceed with caution.

Comments

[cesare]

I loved Black Swan, but it's really intense, so it depends on your mood, I think.

[sophinisba]

Believe it or not, I was thinking of you the other day in relation to the question of whether I should see Black Swan. I was at a family Christmas thing and we were talking about movies and people were saying that Black Swan had gotten very good reviews but looked to be very Intense. And I said that reminded me of when people (by which I meant you, though I didn't say so in the group) talked about how great Pan's Labyrinth was and I went to the theater unprepared for the torture scenes. Sometimes I don't do so well with intense! And while I was watching that movie I was sort of crawling around in my seat and upset and wishing I hadn't come, but then I ended up loving it and buying the DVD and (though I didn't mention this to my family either) writing fic for it, which I enjoyed doing a lot.

Also, I think Natalie Portman's really talented and hot!

So what I think I will do, even though I usually avoid spoilers, I think I will go spoil myself for this movie and then probably go see it, although maybe not today.

Thanks!

[cesare]

I went to the theater unprepared for the torture scenes

Eep! I'm sorry you went on my rec and had that experience! I'll have to remember to mention stuff like that when I rec things.

Black Swan is intense, but there's not the kind of brutality that showed up in Pan's Labyrinth. There are several disturbing scenes but they're dreamlike, where some of the violence in Pan's Labyrinth was all too realistic. I would put it at about 70% as potentially distressing as Pan's Labyrinth. If you want, ask and I'll tell you the most disturbing moment so you can gauge how it would affect you.

It's definitely a film to be a bit braced for, but I found the intensity and the excellence of the storytelling to be exhilarating. And it's visually wonderful, so I would say that if you plan to see it, it's one to catch on the big screen.

Also, if you like Natalie Portman, this is the role of a lifetime for her. The story is relentlessly focused on her character, and I could not have been more impressed with her. Her physicality in this role is amazing and she's so compelling as this character. The casting of all roles was dead on, it was just so solid across the board-- same for direction, cinematography, screenplay, everything. It made me happy to see so many talented people performing at the top of their game.

[sophinisba]

Thank you, this is all very helpful, and I didn't mean to make you feel bad about the Pan's Labyrinth thing! I'm definitely glad I saw that, and I've been emailing with Claudia today about Black Swan and think I'll probably go ahead and see it tomorrow, although depending on my mood I might wimp out and go for Tangled instead.

(OMG Natalie!)

[sophinisba]

Thanks again, that was a great movie! I also (afterwards) enjoyed my friend zahrawithaz's review and you might too. :)

TL;DR, huge spoilers for Black Swan

[cesare]

Interesting review.

I don't agree with her that the film fails to comment on its own premises and its own inevitable reinforcement of some of the same constrictions it's revealing. IMO the casting of Winona Ryder as the displaced older ballerina is, in itself, a strong sign of meta-critique on the part of the filmmakers. If there's any modern actress who's been chewed up and spit out and become self-destructive in the face of insoluble pressures... especially since Ryder is getting roles as an older woman now, despite the fact that she in no way looks old enough to be, eg, Spock's mom: she's someone we're being told is becoming too old to engage the audience's sympathy as a lead, despite all visual evidence to the contrary.

Also, the scene between Lily and Nina is filmed very very firmly from Nina's point of view, rather than pulling back to thrill the audience with shots of Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis kissing. You only have to compare it with a similar scene in Jennifer's Body to see how much the Black Swan scene tries to avoid exploitation.

I'm puzzled that your friend thought the entanglement between Lily and Nina was supposed to 'set up' Nina's 'real' passion for the director. The fact that Nina comes off her Black Swan dance and kisses the director-- to me, that's a literal kiss-off, a total 'fuck you' to his manipulations.

She got in touch with her sensuality through her fantasy about Lily. While she gets distressed by it because of her own damage, I think Nina's attraction to Lily is portrayed as authentic while her connection with the director is showed to be hollow, made explicit when he calls her 'my little princess' at the end, the nickname he used with Beth, treating Nina as an interchangeable doll. Meanwhile Nina shows no sign of giving a shit about his approval, absorbed in the roar of the crowd.

But it just shows how different film interpretation can be. I wouldn't have described the movie as psychological horror. Psychological, sure, maybe a psychological thriller. But despite horrific imagery at points, I didn't think of it as horror.

Maybe because I didn't take the ending as literal. Earlier we saw Nina tear her finger up and then it was revealed she didn't really harm herself, and somehow I don't think Beth really stabbed herself in the face. I loved that the filmmakers didn't pull back to reveal Nina getting up to receive her accolades, but chose to show the emotional truth rather than a literal truth.

Still I don't believe we were supposed to think she literally stabbed herself and died at the end. I thought the ending meant that Nina came to understand that her world would only see perfection in her total self-abnegation. After all, she says it was perfect, but the performance hadn't technically been perfect, since her partner dropped her. What was perfect was that she fulfilled the emotional self-destruction her world demanded. And while her achievement was real-- losing herself in the role(s) was a towering feat for her as an artist-- since the roles themselves are poisonous for what they demand of women, the achievement brings her as much emotional destruction as joy.

Sorry to rant at you! I guess I had Thoughts about that movie. I thought it was as truthful a film as could be made with those themes under the circumstances of its making. IMO, no film could comment on those issues without also buying into them to some degree and still get made in Hollywood. As the film itself has it, literal perfection is impossible, but emotionally, for me at least, I thought the film came about as close as it could come.

Re: TL;DR, huge spoilers for Black Swan

[sophinisba]

That's interesting, I had the same feeling that Beth stabbing herself in the face probably wasn't real, but for some reason I'd come away with the feeling that Nina really was dead at the end (that it was Lily's death that was the fantasy and Nina's that was real), but the way you interpret it makes sense to me. I also agree with you about Nina caring more about the crowd and her own perfection than about Thomas at the end.

You should make a post!

Re: TL;DR, huge spoilers for Black Swan

[claudia603]

I felt exactly the same way, that Lily's death was the dream and that Nina's was real...In spite of there being fantastical things happening throughout, that one struck me as real...

Re: TL;DR, huge spoilers for Black Swan

[sophinisba]

Yeah, sort of like the sex scene with Lily was a foreshadowing of it, where Nina thought she was doing it with Lily but it was really just with herself. (And I do agree with Zahra in her review that it's a bit creepy-and-not-in-a-good-way to be sending that message that lesbian sex isn't real or is really just sex with yourself, but on the other hand it was really cool and interesting how they did it in the movie.)

I was surprised at how much I liked that stabbing scene though. I was like, "You go girl! Take what's yours!" and then she did! Only then it turned out to be different.