When I first time watched this movie, i didn't understand it completely. So If you too were in the same position, this blog is for you, even if you weren't, still you will enjoy this.
Swan lake story:
Virginal girl,pure and sweet trapped in the body of a swan by a evil sorcerer. She desires freedom but that only true love can break the spell of the evil sorcerer.
Her wish is nearly granted in the form of prince. But before he declare his love to white swan, her lustful twin sister black swan tricks and seduces prince.
Devastated, the white swan leaps off the cliff, killing herself. And in death, finds freedom.
In the movie:
Nina (played by Natalie Portman) is a
ballet dancer who always wants to be a swan queen (the lead role of the act).
In the starting of the movie, she was seeing the poster of swan queen of her
production house as obsessively as she always wanted her photo there.
But for the
character of swan queen, dancer must play both the roles of gentle white swan
and seductive black swan as they are twin sisters.
Nina is
beautiful, fragile, and innocent. She has all the characteristic of white swan.
If there had a role only for white swan then Nina was perfect casting for it.
But black swan is seducing, dangerous, sexually aggressive and completely opposite
of white swan.
Thomas,
producer of the play, wanted these characteristics in her.
Nina has hallucination problem. She actually imagines her black swan character as seducing. At railways station, she first time sees her.
For the character
of swan queen, her competition is new bold and confident dancer Lily (Mila
Cunis) who could be the better choice for black swan. Thomas knows abilities of
Nina but the attitude of black swan he wants in her, is not coming out of her.
Still he gives her chance. He didn't want her to be fragile; he wants her
seducing, aggressive. He knows role of white swan is not a problem but the real
problem is how Nina would play black swan.
She always strives for the perfection. Thomas asks her to ‘lose herself’. He says, perfection is not only about control but it’s also about letting go.
From the moment she started dance, her long cherished dream was to be swan queen. She was actually dying to that role and when she gets it, she literally explodes in happiness.
Thomas don't want her to be weak. He wants her to come out of her self made restriction zone. He wants her to be expressive about her feelings.
The character of black swan has eaten up earlier swan queen Beth too as indicated by this scene.
She throws her toys
as now she is not the same girls she used to be. She actually imagines her
black swan character as Lily. It is interesting to see that she is fighting
with herself as she is not able to distinguish between real and imagination (hallucination).
As what happens in Swan Lake story, is parallel happening in the movie. She wants Thomas to believe in her but she thinks Lily is seducing Thomas to get her role and Thomas is getting attracted towards her.
That feeling of jealousy, envy transforming her character. In due course of time, she is changing from white swan to black swan.
She is learning to oppose things.Here, first time she opposes her over protective mother to get out of her room. The character of black swan was eating her up.
She has transformed.
She wants to end that black swan character developed in her. She ends that
character by putting broken glass in her stomach. Stabbing in the mirror is her
losing who she is and becoming swan where she fights good self against evil
self.
At the end, after
playing her character as black swan when she passionately kisses Thomas, first
time Thomas get seduced by her act as black swan. That persona he always wanted
in her.
Hope it helped you a bit.
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