Inadequate

Black Swan is a beautiful movie.

It is beautifully directed, beautifully acted. Its lead actress is beautiful. The cinematography is beautiful.

But unfortunately it is so simplistic, that it is really inadequate. It doesn't live up to its own hype and in the end it is forgettable.

The story is such a cliché: innocent but obsessive ballerina (insert any profession here) dreams to play in swan lake, embodying simultaneously the white and the black swan. Unable to be in touch with the dark side, and throrougly assisted by her own psychological issues, she creates an alternate hallucinating reality where a fellow ballerina is after her and her role, and in the end she loses her mind. She becomes consumed with by the role she so desperately tries to identify with and in the end, only in death can she find the union between her two sides that she so craves for.

Simple? Yes (if you don't believe me just watch/read any production of swan lake).
Simplistic? It didn't have to be but it is.

I am trying to think why this movie didn't work for me. I wanted to see it so much, it ticked so many boxes. But in the end I left the theatre entirely unimpressed and emotionally distanced.

I think the problem of this movie is that it pretends to be something else, for so long, that in the end, when the truth is clear to the audience, the rest of the movie feels like a cheat. Why did it have to pretend to be a 'psychological horror movie'? Was it only in order to make us feel Nina's claustrophobia and paranoia? I am sure you could do that without the fake horror bits. Everyone feels that people are after them, but they don't visualize it as a horror movie...

What is left in the end? - I don't know.
Barbara Hershey was over the top, but good, in the role of the pushy mother.
Natalie Portman was very good in the first half, I think.
Female masturbation scenes are the thing du jour, so I guess, that's also a plus.

And my favorite scene of the movie: when Nina grows her black wings dancing. Impeccably done, beautiful scene.

But in the end, as always, what is beauty without substance?

What is there to say?

Why don't you love me?
When I am so easy to love?

The same

I think the biggest problem with growing up is losing your identity. Not exactly sure if young people do have one in any case, but let me explain what I mean.

You come into this world, young, naive and clueless. Do you have an identity, do you have an opinion? Well, you sort of do (kids do say 'i like this','I don't like that') but they are swiftly silenced by their parents, who quickly impose their own beliefs and desires to their children, creating an army of spooky mini-me's.

Then you grow up, reaching adolecence, and you try to find a voice, you read a little, travel a little, see a movie or two, talk with a couple of people who are different than you. You think you have an opinion, you think you are starting to find yourself. Only to find out,perhaps years later, that you did exactly what your 'generation' did: everybody raised in the same time, in the same country (or perhaps in the whole world) likes, behaves, thinks of the same things. Childern of the sixties, the Romantics, the yuppies, Genration X and so on and so forth.

Then you get older still and you really think you'll get it. You get a job, you become more mature and you think you can actually see the real you. But then the other tragedy happens, you find the person you love. And then all your own self is stiffled inside the all-singing, all-dancing monster of couple-dom. There you really lose yourself and you really do not know where your own thoughts, desires, opinions start and where the better half's end.

Having all this fairly pessimistic story in mind, it was a real pleasure for me to see my friend R who is seven months pregnant. Normally pregnant people go through yet another transformation: from their normal selves to this 'mommy' thing, who doesn't have another topic of discussion and concern apart from the unborn child (for things to become only worse when the child arrives - but let's leave this one asside). For someone who has no children, my biggest fear for when this time comes is how will I keep my individuality when the little person arrives. So, it has been such a pleasure to see that other people can actually do that, they can still be themselves even with a belly superimposed on them. And having children (or about to) does not necessarily entail a total loss of self.

Could we be in it to win it, us mothers-to-be of the new milleium?

Important questions?

What is a new year? What does it mean? What does it bring?

It can be one of the same, you can continue doing exactly what you did the previous year and pretend that it's ok.

You can continue doing exactly the same than the previous year, minus a bleep in January, when you pretend that you've changed.

You can try to change - but fail.

Or you can think about it.

I don't mean 'think about it' in a cliché way, we are all so grateful and we need to evaluate our lives etc. You can really just sit and think about it. You can think, what's going on, do I like myself, am I cool, am I nice to other people, am I nice to myself? Do I like my life?

I think this is perhaps the best question one can ask oneself: do I like my life? Is it 'me', this life, does it suit me? Is it what I always wanted to do, is this where I always wanted to be?

Not all our childhood dreams come true, but there is a sense in which we need to be true to ourselves, at least as much as we can be. We need to remember and remind ourselves what we used to like, what we wanted to be like. And when what we are really, really doesn't match that, perhaps we need to consider changing. Not for any other reason but because clichés are true, and we only live once. And before you die, you know, you need to look back and regardless of anything else, you need to be able to say that you were happy. You need to say that you had one chance in this world and you didn't blow it.

And if what I say doesn't persuade you, I suggest you read The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy.

Other than that, Happy New Year everyone, and Happy New Decade!