Scene4 Magazine | letters to the editor

I enjoyed the review by Renate Stendhal, though have a different take on Black Swan. I walked away also being reminded of Cronenberg, but more of Aronofsky's other films--he has a penchant for characters inclined toward self-mutilation. Overall I was disappointed in this film. I didn't think it was silly (like your colleague), but wanted it to be better, more complex. Portman was simply too wimpy the whole time to be interesting to me--no dancer without a spine gets to be a principal--and though I know this was a function of her "dark" side containing all her power, it still made the movie and the performance less psychologically intriguing than I wanted it to be. Everything was, for me, a little too black and white. And as a feminist, the voyeuristic aspect really began to pall after a while. The whole thing seemed to be tailor-made for the male gaze (cat fights, the lesbian scene, the masturbation scene, the spectacle of one battered female body after another).

M. Dressler

read Renate Stendhal's review