Blog#5 Black Swan

      Good evening, I am Fumiya. Tonight,I would like to recommend you "Black Swan"(2011) directed by Darren Aronofsky. Before explaining about this film, I want you to know why I chose this.  As you may know, I am an ameteur hula dancer. On July 29th, I will participate in National College Hula Dance Competition 2012 for sections of group and solo, both. That is why I want to raise my morale with the maximum effort by the end of this month. Needless to say, I know how to be a good dancer, that is a daily practice, but also I think that there are something I cannnot toughen up by only daily practices, so I asked my coach. Then, she told me that besides dancing hula, watching movies about dancing is a good way to deepen your expressions on hula, it may makes your hula more aggressive and emotional. To polish my hula techniques further, I chose "Black Swan".


      The story is about a ballet dancer, Nina (Natalie Portman) who lives in New York, she lives with her mother. Her mother also belonged same ballet company which Nina goes now, but she had to gave up her dream halfway because she became pregnant when she was 28, that baby was Nina. That is why she leave her dream to Nina since her daughter was born, she gave Nina special education of ballet, it made her become an honor ballet dancer, but her ballet is just straight and sensitive, not sensual or wild. One day, she applied for an audition for a cast of Swan Queen. That role have to act White Swan and Black Swan both. Her image fit perfectly for White Swan, but she does not fit Black Swan at all because she is too pure, gentle and delicate for that role. However, Nina wanted that role no matter what, so she persuade her dance director, Tomas. She was asked about her love and sexual experiences because those were neccesary to be the Black Swan , and she was kissed by him. She was so surprised and refused him, then she bite his lips. By this action, he found out her potential to act Black Swan, he chose her as new SwanQueen. Since she was chosen, she was burdened by her mother's pressure, the dance director's scolding,her colleagues's enviousness and her hallucination due to stress by those. Even she was concerned with those distresses, she never gave up. That is why she could give the first public performance of Swan Lake perfectly, but she was assailed by hallucinations at her dreesing room, she thought that she killed her collegue, Lily. However, it was just hallucination, actually she stabbed her stomach with a broken piece of her mirror. Still, she acted perfectly until she finished her performance. This story ends with her lines which "I was perfect",then Lily found out that she was losing her blood badly and Tomas called the ambulance.



     I felt fear because this film's description was grotesque, like losing blood. I felt it was like a horror movie, but I was impressed by Nina's soul for dancing so I could feel passion and learn what should I do as a dancer is not only daily practice, sometimes I need myself to bring to bay, for appearing on a stage like a big scale hula competition which I will partcipate in.  By watching this film, I started thinking more about hula, practicing more. Ithink it was very precious film for my hula life, I will make extra special efforts for that competition thanks to "Black Swan".  If you are interested in dancing, or having experiences as a dancer, you should watch this.

Mia