Whenever asked to define what the horror genre is to me, I always refer to the works of Edgar Allen Poe, particularly his story the Sphinx. This is a story about a man who is stressed as everyone around him is dying of cholera. He retreats to a country home. There, while sitting at a window, he sees a huge monster running towards his cabin. He is stressed out of his mind, convinced this is a sign of his own imminent death. In the end it was merely a spider that was dangling a couple of inches in front of his eyes. His stressed mind created the monster, feeding his feeling of loss of control over the situation around him.…

Ingeniously balancing beauty & horror from start to finish, Black Swan is a harrowing depiction of a passion turning into an obsession which ultimately sets in motion a chain of events that results in complete self-destruction. Apart from being one of the best offerings of its year, this psychosexual thriller is also Darren Aronofsky's finest work since his 2000 manic Requiem for a Dream.

The story concerns Nina Seyers; a highly skilled ballet dancer who is chosen as the ballerina for her ballet company's next play 'Swan Lake'. Perfect in the role of the delicate & innocent White Swan character, Nina fails to convincingly pull off the personality that is required for the sly & sensual Black Swan. And in her desperate attempt…

A Ballet Dancer emerges into the spotlight. She twirls on pointe, with a smile on her face, carefree. She gets worried as a dark figure approaches her, she tries to avoid it, but it follows her.

Nina wakes up dreaming about the Swan Lake as herself as the Swan Queen. She has been trying and working hard to get to that spotlight. Her mother is overprotective of her, like Nina is still in Primary School.

Nina thrives for perfection. her dance looks like it, but it is perfect for the White Swan as Thomas Leroy the director of Ballet tells her. For to be the Black Swan, Nina has to let go of her Perfection, become carefree, seduce the prince…

Nightmarish, harrowing, alluring, and simply magnificent; Black Swan is one of the three masterpieces created by one of the finest directors of our generation, Darren Aronofsky. Combined with a deserving performance by Natalie Portman, fantastical and fluid direction by Aronofsky, mind-melting and horrific imagery, and a general mood of disquiet and instability; the entire film culminates in a work that can only be described as perfect.

Melding both the sick perversity of early Cronenberg and the quiet elegance of Roman Polanski's chillers, Black Swan is a psychological thriller that feels richly unique even though its woven from familiar cloth. The story centers on Nina, a shy and childlike ballet dancer who is chosen to be the lead in the play,…

Every time that I see 'Black Swan' again, I succumb to its beautifully dark and sinister spell some more. I cannot pick any fault with it, and every aspect - be it technical or narrative-based, doesn't only make me fall in love with Darren Aronofsky's masterpiece a little bit more, but it makes me fall in love with cinema a lot more (I didn't think it was possible).

Because a masterpiece, a cinematic tour de force and a pure example of engaging storytelling is exactly what 'Black Swan' is. Much of the plaudits note Natalie Portman's excellent performance as the highlight of the piece, and rightly so - she hits all of the right beats and captures all of the…

Please stop saying this is great queer represetnation. Please... I'll explain why.
Initially, I was look forward to the movie. A film with lesbians and the macabre? I was excited. This concept satisfied my queer little heart. The story is, essentially, about a dancer who gradually loses her mind because she's stressed about dancing. As she loses her mind, her sexual interractions with Mila Kunis' character grow more significant, until their infamous makeout sex scene whatever, that (mostly straight) people jump up and down for, claiming it's great gay representation. But they are wrong. It perpetuates the same trope apparent in the majority of the 20th century, one that insists that there is something inherently wrong with queerness, by associating…

Black Swan is a gripping and Kafkaesque story of a woman so consumed by her desire to dance the perfect lead inSwan Lake, that she becomes transformed and corrupted by her passion. The story itself is an interesting concept, the idea of being physically consumed by a role and the artistic passion it requires. Aronofsky's use of body horror is an inspired choice, given that ballet is about pushing ones body into new limits, and bridging psychological and physiological elements is a thriller trope that's rarely done as well as it's handled here.

Credit to that must go to Natalie Portman's wonderful performance, she expresses an atmosphere of being gracefully unhinged, and makes Nina into a compellingly disturbing protagonist. Mila…