Recently I went to see the movie “Black Swan” with my roommate. I had heard a lot of different things about this psychological thriller, I was not sure what to expect. What I saw was a movie with amazing symbolism and shots that shows this transformation between a calm, sweet, graceful dancer to a racy and crazy dancer. This movie takes the concept of the ballet Swan Lake to a whole new level. The transformation of Nina, the white swan, to Nina, the black swan is amazing. The film uses black and white to show how she is making her transformation and who is helping her in this transformation.
She starts out by wearing white leotards while in practice and is the prim, proper, and perfect dancer who has been following the rules since day one to try and get to be number one. Her dance teacher wants her to be more unpredictable. She ends of getting the swan princess due to biting her teacher when he starts to kiss her. The only problem with her dancing the two parts is that she is not “seductive” enough for the black swan; she is still too much of a goody two shoes. Many shots in the early part of the film show Nina with bright lighting, while her teacher or the other dancer played by Mila Kunis is shown in dark lighting.
Other than the lighting, Nina is shown with skin changes. There are normally bumps all over her skin that in my opinion symbolizes her transformation into the black swan. As the story goes on, Nina begins to wear grey leotards and even her eyes turn red during the black swan performance. Her transformation has actually taken place in front of our eyes. This movie has some of the best symbolism with black and white that I have seen in a long time. While it is somewhat disturbing at points, it is a great movie and one that probably needs to be watched again to really understand it all. :)
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