"I was perfect"
Perfection. What a funny word, we think of it as doing something over and over until you get it right. Often not thinking of others, yourself, and the physical consequences you will go through to achieve it. The 2010 masterpiece black swan portrays perfection in a scary obsessive way. How Nina goes over the edge to be perfect. She goes to her instructor to ask for the part of swan queen, she starts to rebel against her mom, she even has weird hallucinations. Under the pressure of her dance school she is put through hell to achieve beauty.

Black swan is a 2010 psychological thriller staring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and Winoyda Rider directed by Darren Aranofsky you may know him from requiem for a dream, the wrestler and the controversial mother. I do not like Darren at all personally, while I think this film is a godamn masterpiece we all can agree he should stop copying actual shots from the movie perfect blue in his films but this is no doubt his best work, telling the beautifully dark and disturbing story of Nina Sayers a sensitive ballet dancer wanting a role for the swan queen in the upcoming dance show they are doing Swan Lake. She is under pressure of the studio, the antagonizing Lily who she forms a twisted relationship with and her over protective mother who surrounds her with stuffed animals like something we would see from the room of a 4 year old. This may be one of the scariest movies ever made, and also one of the most beautiful. I look at this film more as a horror because nothing is more scary than the human mind and what it can do to you.

Lets start with the performances. Natlie Portman was magnificent she portrayed Nina with such grace and beauty. But disturbed me to my core. The emotions she portrayed in the film were so exquisite. Nina is a memorable character mainly because of the way Portman portrays her. She deserved the oscar. I would go as far to say she gave the best performance of the decade in my opinion at least. The way she was able to bring darkness and innocence to Nina was outstanding and I will have it burned into my memory. Mila Kunis was S-S-SNUBBED of a supporting actress nomination her character Lily was intriguing and stole every scene she was in.

The film itself is outstanding with gorgeous cinematography suspenseful tension and incredible acting from everyone in the film the ending is still one of the most memorable in recent history. Combining beauty and tragedy very well. The use of music is fantastic with the enchanting score of swan lake playing throughout. Anxiety inducing and stressful it kept me on the edge of my seat. It starts off a bit slow and then goes insane with the plot in the last 25 minutes making it a uneasy watch.

from here I will analyze the film I will divide into paragraphs
THE OPENING
The opening scene is a dream sequence from Nina dreaming about dancing the white swan while she is dancing she is encounterd by a darkness demon looking like creature who takes ahold of her and mimics her movements. A ballerina dancing with such delicacy without knowing of her surroundings until the darkness approaches. What I think this meant was a foreshadowing of her transformation into the black swan we se Nina doesnt have control in the dream as the creature moves her around like a puppet as in the movie she doesnt have control over succumbing to her dark side, her black swan.

THE COLOR PALATE OF BLACK SWAN
The colors in this film are mainly light pink, white, black and grey and they all have meaning. When we first see Nina she is wearing light pink the color of innocence a bright happy child like color. In one scene that I also think is foreshadowing she is wearing a pink top over her grey sweater I think this meant she had darkness is inside of her the whole time, and she was hiding it. But she is child like on the outside. Nina mainly wears white throughout the film which represents innocence like the white swan Nina is the white swan. Lily on the other hand wears black in almost every scene she is in implying she is like the black swan. The opposite of Nina. Black the color of boldness and darkness. The main dance instructor wears mainly black and white in all of his scenes which means he has full control over the white and black swan. Just like he has full control of the dancers in his studio and who plays the swan queen.

Nina Sayers
Nina is a complex character to say the least, she has a desire to be perfect her dancing is fragile, delicate, and graceful like a white swan. While the dance of the black swan is energetic and bold. Like I said before she wears white to represent the white swan but as the film gets closer to the end she starts to wear darker colors which means she is not herself anymore. The scene after the club with Lily yaknow....... I think it represents Ninas desire to play the black swan and her giving into her darkness. Because after that scene she starts to decent faster and further into madness, after that scene she puts on a dark grey shirt is rude to her mother and is finally able to dance the black swan. A role she was never able to do before. The rash on Ninas body as we find out are her black swan feathers they are only able to come out after Nina becomes the black swan. She dismisses it at first saying it was nothing because when she said that she was still innocent and a child. She starts to get crazier and crazier and the rash starts to grow bigger and bigger until they make her turn into the black swan. As she gets closer and closer to opening night she starts to get more and more crazy with vivid hallucinations and doing thing shes never done before.

Erica Sayers
Ninas mom Erica has a weird way of raising her child. I mean who surrounds their 28 year old daughter with stuffed animals and pink butterfly wallpaper. Erica is the definition of a helicopter parent preventing Nina from doing everything except dance. There are a lot of theories on what Erica did to Nina some make me want to fucking vomit. But ive come to the conclusion that this is why she was doing all these insane things to her "sweet girl." Erica had Nina when she was young that making her quit ballet and raising her daughter. Making sure Nina did not make the same mistake Erica treated her like a child so she would stay that way. Erica wanted a success story that being Nina she herself is a perfectionist maybe thats where Nina got her traits from perfection, anger and insanity. Ballet is a delicate art therefore you have to be in that mindset to be great at it. Nina for example is the embodiment of that Erica was afraid if Nina was to do other things that would damage her fragility and make her spiral down a road if that were to happen Ninas life would maybe turn into requiem for a dream. That meaning Erica would not get the success she hoped for Erica is a fucked up human but I think she cared for Nina in a very sick way.

The score
The score of black swan is beautiful consisting of classical music. I think the score represents what Nina is feeling. The main theme music of the film is in the music box we hear, and in the scene where Ninas mom calls her on the phone while she is in the club we hear the ringtone as the theme but Nina immediately shuts it off implying she is dismissive of her white swan spiraling further into darkness. Ninas theme graceful and innocent as it sounds. But when Nina is exploring her darker side a more eerie tone plays symbolizing the score is how Nina feels as in the suspense and the hallucinations scenes it is intense like how she is feeling. Ugh idk what that meant but the main thing I wanted to say about the score is when Nina is starting to become the black swan we hear the music box playing the white swan theme or what I like to think of it as the theme of innocence and she just throws it on the floor and it breaks destroying that part of herself.

Comparisons and inspirations
It is no secret that Aranofsky was inspired by the 1990s anime movie perfect blue putting a scene from that into requiem for a dream. The plot structure in perfect blue is very similar in the vibe of psychological trauma, hallucinations and perfection but they are both different films and both are great in their own way perfect blue deals more with the trauma and visions and is much more gory while black swan deals more with being held back to achieve greatness, and a more uneasy vibe. Another film that feels similar is whiplash a movie also about achieving perfection while the plot structure may seem similar it is more focused on the pressure of an instructor instead of psychological madness. A film that I also thinks kind of rips this off is the 2018 film The perfection. A cast member said it was like black swan but add cellos in there like bruh they even copied the club scene. I was not a big fan of this one at all the perfection borrowed themes from black swan, get out and whiplash and it fails at every one. While the violence in black swan is subtle yet disturbing in the perfection it is done over the top and for shock value while black swan does it to drive the story.

The ending
Rushing to opening night Nina is now the black swan more than ever, now unable to capture the fragility of the white swan dance she fails. Feeling humiliated she sees Lily in her dressing room in a fit of rage Nina attacks her and stabs her thinking she is dead Nina drags her into a closet and just like that Nina goes onstage to dance the black swan which is one of my favorite scenes in recent years she embodies that black swan now dancing with energy, boldness, and anger something she wasn't able to do before when she goes back in the dressing room she realizes that Lily is alive and she actually stabbed herself now doing the white swan dance again and leaping on to the mattress she seems relaxed yet saddend as she says "I was perfect" and bleeds out as the screen fades to white which is something we dont often see in a film. This could mean either A the fade to white could mean the death of a white swan and the birth of a black swan B the loss of innocence as or C a sad but happy ending black is the color of loss and defeat while white is triumphet
my guess is A because Nina finally got what she wanted but at what cost she damaged her relationship with her mother went crazy and became the black swan with the fade to white marking the death of the white swan the death of Nina Sayers.
But Picture this
A controlling mother wanting a success story
A ruthless dancer wanting rivalry
A weirdo instructor wanting control
A jealous maniac wanting failure
And a delicate ballerina who just wants to be perfect
Darkness arises with a bang and innocence goes down with a sigh. While you look up at the blinding lights and are finally able to be satisfied with yourself but costing you everything in the process. That is the devastation of black swan.

The true genre
This sounds crazy but I think this is a coming of age film a very twisted one for that matter hear me out when we first meet our protagonist she is basically a child despite her age of early to mid 20s surrounded with stuffed animals, a mother that treats her like a child as we progress she starts to rebel throwing her stuffed animals away fighting against her mother and losing herself and the story is really about letting yourself go of your past if you think about it. She does not age but her personality does.

Finial thoughts
I liked the movie. A lot. Every time I think about it it moves up higher and higher on my top 100 it is one of those movies that feels more like an experience you have to see it to believe it. Every scene is edited together amazingly. Every shot feels new even though we have seen similar settings before. Every character feels important to the story each one being a reason why Nina is the way she is. Her overprotective mother being the reason why she acts like a child. Her weird instructor being the reason she wants to prove everyone wrong. Lily being the reason she embraced her true darkness. Beth being a warning on what perfection or the strive to be like that can do to a person. The scene towards the end with everyone dancing with such graceful movement as the classical music echoes throughout is just something else. Beautiful, dark, haunting, captivating, disturbing, suspenseful, tragic, traumatizing, perfect. I will never forget this movie.