Black Swan (2010)

5/5

Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan is honestly one of the most terrifying movies I have ever seen. It envelops you in the psyche of an unstable, damaged woman. It traps you there without escape. Yet you cannot turn your eyes away. You can only watch in horror as she gradually disintegrates. You are left staring at scenes that will disturb and disgust you. You witness her fears come alive as hallucinations; you witness her ecstasies turn cruel and nightmarish. When her paranoia completely engulfs her, I was literally trembling with fear.

The movie is arresting in all its technical aspects. Its stark lighting and black and white palette is visually stunning. It frequently tracks characters' movements, more often rough, nauseating, and immersive instead of the more typical smooth, dreamlike voyeurism to which we are accustomed. The editing is pitch-perfect: it gives us fluid transitions alongside beautiful compositions, it integrates plot progression with taut suspense. The thematics are compelling and powerful, revealing Aronofsky's focus on central concepts that likely mirror his own life. The story shares the same basic framework as all of his other films. An outcast discovers a hobby or talent. It becomes an addiction that soon consumes their life. It finally metamorphoses into an obsession for which they will sacrifice everything they used to cherish.

Aronofsky's Black Swan, for all its technical prowess and thematic underpinnings, is a movie that ultimately rests on the actors' shoulders. Winona Ryder, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, and Vincent Cassel shine in their roles, but none of them take your breath away quite like Natalie Portman. She delivers a phenomenal performance. She plays the timid, virginal ballerina to perfection. Her ultimate reversal into the sexually uninhibited black swan seems equally effortless. She simply becomes her character--none of it is acting. She is the reason to stop whatever you're doing right now and see this movie. But no matter when you see it, now or ten years from now, I have no doubt that it will still be hailed as a masterpiece.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0947798/

Falling Down (1993)

2/5

Joel Schumacher's Falling Down follows an unemployed defense worker (Douglas) with a temper problem. Seeing "flaws" and "problems" in society, one day he violently and psychotically lashes out against them. A cop about to retire (Duvall) spends his last day trying to hunt him down and stop his violence. The characters are very much off the wall and unique, yet don't quite work. They're too extreme. The story escalates formulaically, but doesn't follow the formula to the end. It starts too exaggerated and goes sideways halfway through instead of finishing with the explosive finale expected. The acting was actually pretty good (Duvall's laugh was amazing). I liked the intro (a ripoff, but a good ripoff, of the intro to 8 1/2); it was incredible at eliciting discomfort and an unsettling atmosphere. The rest of the movie is so ludicrous that it becomes laughable, but is fun and funny in its caricatures. This isn't a good movie, but it's enjoyable in the same way Sameer can place Crash in his top ten comedies.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0106856/