Black Swan

"Attack it! Attack it!"

Black Swan leaves nothing behind the scenes, tearing through its tale with rude ferocity. Life and art flirt gracelessly. They converge magnetically. Performance and reality at long last become one at the top of the steps and consummate, consummately:

"I was perfect"

For Nina, life doesn't imitate art. It reflects it. When she puts on her make up she puts it on her reflection. Nina wants to see an ideal in the mirror. The performers think that they are in control, that they shape it, exercising, stretching, purging. Yet isn't it the image that calls the shots?

People are her mirrors too, changing (but how much?) when she looks at them : a mother whose protective embrace will suffocate and destroy; a friend whose kindness and companionship is distorted by Nina's paranoia and instability. Nina doesn't have control, doesn't take charge until her fear and ambition reaches an operatic pitch only she can hear:

"It's my turn!"

She is a woman who never stopped being a girl. She is suggestible and changeable. She feels imperfect, like a child used to being called a Princess suddenly scolded. There is no love to break the spell or at least love that isn't cloying and conditional.


The first day of the new season and Lily bursts in late. From this moment Nina associates Lily with disruption and begins to view her as a usurper. Lily bursts everywhere - at work, at home, in her bed. With Lily now within it, Nina's unstable mind is at the point of breakdown. The lights of the studio shut down when she is stressed, far more serious than scattered horror beats. She doesn't know what is happening. People seem to invade her or are let in without realising ('Susie in the office' is always ready with information, a slang, a code). She hallucinates. Going out of her mind and growing out of her skin like the butterflies on her wall. She is "moulting", as Sheila O'Malley describes it, into adulthood and into a creature of pure imagination.

"What happened to my sweet girl?" "She's gone!"

Nina is being reborn. She is pushing against the people who manipulate her. The embryonic black swan makes its presence felt in the nightclub, the dull beat and pink haze approximating a womb. Taking a bath she comes gasping to the surface.

[The club scene recalls the opening "Jitterbug" from Mulholland Drive* in its heady colour, its dreaminess, the main characters set out from a background of dancers, silhouettes and images within silhouettes.]

The ballet gives her a character, a new shell into which to grow. She knows that ballet has eaten Beth, the former belle of the stage, and spat her out but she doesn't care. Art makes demands and not only on the body, twisting and cracking. Beth stabs herself with a nail file that could be a beak (as Ed Howard noted), declaring that she is "nothing". They live for ballet. It makes and takes their lives. Nina knows. But she wants to be something.

"I'm the Swan Queen. You're the one who never left the corps!"

Nina is uneasy around men and wary of her mother (always outside the door). She has no-one (her father is never mentioned) apart from Lily, whose uninhibited frankness disturbs her and excites her. The opportunity for rare friendship becomes mixed with nascent and bottled-up sexual feelings (sex is not the kernel of the film but one of the many aspects of Nina's slow-burning maturation/mutation). Something strong is growing out of her brittleness. The wicked rapture on her face as the feathers sprout is something else.

She is so weak, her white swan, that she can be smashed into tiny shards. The only problem is the white swan and the black swan are not the twins Odette and Odile, but the same person. Killing the white swan will kill them both. Suicide with a mirror's blade.

Nevertheless, they will briefly be released.

"...and, in death, finds freedom"

The final twenty minutes are appalling, sorrowful and disorienting. They are triumphant. Finally realising who she is and what she has done to herself, she calmly sits in her dressing room and puts on her make-up. Sadness and relief hiccup out of her and tranquility washes over her eyes. It is magical, as miraculous and spellbinding as her final transformation. By becoming lost in her role, she has found herself.

This is her crowning glory and her farewell. When we get to the end it feels, in retrospect, inevitable. Not predictable. It just had to be this way. There is an awesome feeling of catharsis. Like the ecstasy pill, Black Swan lasts a couple of hours, a perfect storm of extreme sensations (Nina's version of Edvard Munch's scream epitomises this).

She is whole. She is no longer fractured between childhood and adulthood or between potential and fulfilment. Jumping to the mat, a slow motion allows her, for a few seconds, to fly. The camera that stalked behind her head or whose gaze violated is now hers. And she is ready for her Close-Up.

*More often than not comparisons to other films are reductive rather than instructive. Black Swan is its own unique thing and yet I was reminded of All About Eve (the final mirror image especially) and the relationship of pleasure/pain between Norman Bates and his mother, revealed in detail in Psycho IV.

The Last Airbender - Circles, Globes and Peace

The orbs of the Sun and the Moon are symbols of wholeness and of the purity (at the beginning) of all nature. They are all-seeing and always seen witnesses to the inherent goodness of a balanced natural order.

Circles and globes are a recurring visual motif in The Last Airbender.

When Aang, the latest incarnation of the Avatar, appears from beneath a sheet of ice, he is encased within a globe. He is found and freed by Katara.* Aang has come, with his unique ability to bend all four elements, to "bring balance" to a world imperilled by the Fire Nation's lust for power. This balance is symbolised by the ocean and moon (earth and sky) spirits who swim about their holy waters (as koi) in a circle, forming a yin/yang.

Captured by the Fire Nation  Aang is set a test to ascertain whether he is indeed the Avatar; a puddle of water poured messily onto a table-top. Aang shifts it into a smooth circle. Even unconsciously the Avatar restores symmetry. That is his inheritance from his previous lives (a golden statue of the last incarnation, Avatar Roku, holds a circular emblem in his hands) and that of his companions  - Katara is first seen bending water into a sphere, wearing her mother's round pendant around her neck.

Intermittently the camera itself will track in a circular motion. As Aang fights in an Earthbender village,the camera spins around him and his colleagues. This movement sharpens the sense both of being surrounded by threats and of being protected by an impregnable curve, much as Jesus drew a circle in the sand of the desert, a cocoon which no temptation could breach in The Last Temptation of Christ.

In a particularly gorgeous scene, an elegant prolonged take, Aang and Katara practise their moves as we slowly step around them. Encircled with blessings, they gather up the energies of their surroundings. Earlier Aang fights in a training circle, whose panels, which run along its edge, can be used to either keep out invaders, or isolate them within.

Globes and planets are evoked in many compositions that place Aang in the foreground, in extreme close-up, and Katara (also, on one occasion, Zuko and Iroh of the Fire Nation) in the background. Arranged in space in such a radical way, Aang's head resembles a Sun (or a planet) around which Katara's may revolve as a satellite. These are important people charged with earth-shattering powers and responsibilities, figures transcribed onto the map of space itself.

Lest we forget, the moon is itself a water-bender.

Princess Yue of the Northern Water Tribe owes her life to the Moon spirit. After it is killed by Commander Zhao ("We are the Gods!") she sacrifices herself to keep it alive (a suicide recalling one in Kenji Mizoguchi's Sansho the Bailiff). It is not just the people who need to be in balance with each other, but all of nature, as one organism, with itself. She walks into the sacred waters in which the Moon spirit lives, an amniotic fluid into and out of which flows all life. Her hair had turned white when she was a baby and now, life leaking out of her, it turns black. This is a typically elegant touch, one of numerous intelligent departures from the animated TV series from whose first season the film is adapted.

Preparing for the Fire Nation's assault, Aang effortlessly suspended shimmering globules of water hurled at him by his tutor. This hints at the gravity of his destiny, one whose impact will be felt as if the universe itself had been brought under his command. The scales of justice are entrusted to him (below), just one kid, his own illuminated manuscript (bottom).

Aang replaces fear with awe (by summoning a giant wall from the ocean) and, rather than exile and destruction, he offers the enemy hope and friendship. He wants to convert, to "change hearts", not eliminate.

He is however, in some ways, unknowable, even to his closest allies. Although in these background/foreground shots Katara's voice whispers as if from the deep recesses of Aang's mind, the two do not face each other. The distance, physical and emotional, is palpable, the chasm yawning. Neither is clearly seen and never are they both in focus. Only at the end, once the battle is won, does Aang shift to face Katara and meet her in the middle ground. They have reached understanding on an equal footing. They had always trusted and cared for one another but she was not able or capable to share the burden of his mission in full.

 The switched focus is a dialogue, the hug a silent and moving harmony.

By using circles and globes, the moon, the planets and the tides, The Last Airbender can say so much so economically, characteristic of the film's ability to convey broad brush ideas with finesse. It says an awful lot about their place in the universe, life, reconciliation, peace, love, about no-one being left behind and the strength they all hold in their hearts. Within the walls of the water tribe city, both water and fire people bow before Aang. "They want you to be their Avatar" says Katara. Their, not the. It is more than destiny and chance that could make him the Avatar (he has run away from his calling once before and already mourns the loss of a normal child's life) - it is will and the purity of a good heart.

The Last Airbender is an exciting and inspiring tale, one of the best films of the year.

*In the TV series on which the film is based he awakes in her arms, as if born of the belly of the earth to a human mother.

The Animation Countdown Ends

A few days ago the countdown of my top 100 animated works (film or television) came to an end at Wonders in the Dark. I wrote reviews for the top 50. Here is the final list :


1 My Neighbour Totoro
2 The Simpsons
3 Cinderella (1922 - Lotte Reiniger)
4 Paranoia Agent
5 Whisper of the Heart
6 Spirited Away
7 Yokohama Shopping Log
8 The Hand
9 The Mascot
10 Patlabor 2 The Movie
11 Inspirace
12 Feeling from Mountain and Water
13 The Plague Dogs
14 Hedgehog in the Fog
15 Perfect Blue
16 The Adventures of Mark Twain
17 Le Nez
18 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
19 Early Abstractions
20 The Snow Queen
21 Porco Rosso
22 Triangle
23 The Battle of Kerzhenets
24 Pleasures of War
25 Allegro Non Troppo
26 Story of a Street Corner
27 La Joie de Vivre
28 Only Yesterday
29 Firing Range
30 Space Ghost Coast to Coast
31 The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia
32 Batman Mask of the Phantasm
33 Sinking of the Lusitania
34 The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh
35 Crac
36 Serial Experiments Lain
37 Destino
38 Le Roi et L’Oiseau
39 Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
40 Stoppit and Tidyup
41 The Metamorphosis of Mr Samsa
42 Street of Crocodiles
43 Swinging the Lambeth Walk
44 House of Flame
45 The Old Lady and the Pigeons
46 Valhalla
47 Sky Blue
48 Sleeping Beauty
49 A Picture
50 Yellow Submarine
51 Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
52 Balance
53 Kamichu!
54 Monsters Inc.
55 Princess Mononoke
56 I Love to Singa
57 Ren and Stimpy
58 Millennium Actress
59 Adventures of Prince Achmed
60 Wolf and Calf
61 Laputa : Castle in the Sky
62 1895
63 Jumping
64 Ai
65 Anne of Green Gables
66 Punch and Judy
67 Cat Concerto
68 Angel's Egg
69 Muto
70 Nightangel
71 The Humpbacked Horse
72 Dumbo
73 Little Nemo
74 Belleville Rendez-Vous
75 Le Roman de Renard
76 Ulysses 31
77 Urusei Yatsura
78 The Comb
79 The Hasher's Delirium
80 Ponyo
81 Haibane Renmei
82 Pinocchio
83 Dangermouse
84 Watership Down
85 Who Framed Roger Rabbit
86 Mindscape
87 A Short History
88 Kirikou et La Sorciere
89 Epilogue
90 A Charlie Brown Christmas
91 Monster
92 Tyger
93 Avatar : The Last Airbender
94 The Tale of How
95 Animal Farm
96 Dougal and the Blue Cat
97 Creature Comforts
98 My Neighbours the Yamadas
99 Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters
100 Harpya

Happy Christmas! Lotte Reiniger's The Star of Bethlehem

Do Films Need Music?

The more 'minimalist' films you experience - by the Dardennes Brothers, say, or Lisandro Alonso and Chantal Akerman - or films with little or no musical soundtrack (The Birds, for example), the more music is exposed as the least important of all Cinematic tools.

"Do films need music" might be a disingenuous question. "Would this film be better without music?" is a better, more pertinent one. In Let the Right One In it felt like an unwelcome visitor. In L'Intrus, an imposter. Music in the former reiterated what we were seeing. In the latter it attempted to mask narrative emptiness with faux mysteriousness. In my mind music had slowly become superfluous, retreating to where it is the story, as in some silent films, or, of course, Musicals.

Or should the question be posed from another angle: "Have you seen a film that you thought would benefit from more music?" I don't think I have.

What is music used for? To aid comprehension (as a guide); to add meaning or excitement by amplifying or counteracting the predominant text; to anticipate an attack (in a horror film) unforeseen by the character; to speak the unspoken; to help you remember the film (an aide memoire). Most of all it is there to be entertaining in and of itself, regardless of its relationship to the rest of the film. For me, saying "but it's a great tune" is not enough.

Considering the root reasons for needing music in these cases we can conclude that music improves. However, though it improves, it puts a cap on the potential of the story to be told in the most effective way possible. In other words music is a band-aid on a broken leg.

Music is too often used to validate a flimsy moment, to paper over cracks, to suspend or distract disbelief. Therefore the problem with extra-diegetic (deriving from outside the fictional world of the film) music is partly fundamental, partly in how it is conventionally utilised.

I believe, even when it is making up for something missing or getting our toes tapping, that music generally closes space, suffocates a film by limiting its emotional palette. Clearly music does not come from the fictional world. It is a screen that stands in the way of a more direct engagement. It's good to be in a character's head for a while, where there's no music.It is, undeniably, an especially artificial part of film. Can music be as exploratory, curious and deep as the human mind or heart? Does it expand our horizons or simply take our hand to point at specific sights, 'manipulating' us?

Is it an exaggeration to say that music turns us from witnesses of people and place (even if that is also a controlled, sealed environment) to consumers of those same objects packaged as a product? Yes, music inevitably changes what we see, but what films use music to spice a situation or to undermine, balance, critique, deepen rather than mirror? It seems that a Director, going to a composer, will ask that composer to 'match' what is on screen rhythmically and tonally.

As it is most soundtracks endorse their existence by the following logic: the music is cool, tense etc. and so one thinks the film would be boring without it. The film though is geared towards the inclusion of music and so that is, in fact, true. Why do we say it would be boring without it? What is it hiding?


Is the ubiquitousness of music about control? When there is no music or even no sound, we start to think. We think all kinds of things that take us away from what the film-maker intended or wants us to think or feel. Understandably, artists can be scared of that silence. Their vision needs to be clear and clearly communicated. The music shepherds us back onto the beaten track.

By its nature and by its use music is damaging many films. Of course there are exceptions. Sofia Coppola uses music with ease and style to comment, critique and enrich (and to get us humming along). She demonstrates that the creation of a soundtrack does not have to be an afterthought.

Action and Science Fiction films imbibe music into their fabric most effectively. Nevertheless, imagine Star Wars with its incredible sounds as the music. What would it be like?

Perhaps there are moments, because film will always be a distant world through a looking-glass, that require a soundtrack. Maybe music is needed when we would otherwise have to physically be there to fully comprehend events.

Below is a link to the iconic 'shower scene' from Psycho - once with music in place, once without music:

Psycho Shower Scene

The first, with music, is a tour de force. It is an entertainment. The second is bare and nude and exposed. As Grace Zabriskie says in Inland Empire, it is now a "brutal f***ing murder". The choice is yours.

Different and Memorable Cinematic Kisses

A kiss is a kiss. A viewer can become blase about an inevitable touching of lips. This is when a Director can accentuate the intimacy and the spiritual elevation of an embrace to reinvigorate the image with a tinge of the visceral.

In the 1957 film An Affair To Remember Leo McCarey has his romantic partners kiss off-screen (below), the posing of their lower bodies speaking of submission to the ecstasy of the moment. The sacred intimacy of this first kiss is preserved by being away from prying eyes and the sensuality thus only heightened. Our imaginations run riot, an audience's anticipation left fulfilled and in limbo. In this one scene, therefore, the Director encapsulates the whole film - they have each other off-stage but will they hold on to each other on-stage?

Submission is one way in Ivan's Childhood. A man makes to help a girl across a trench only to capture her in a clinch while she is helpless. He has complete power as she dangles over the hole. Both romantic (swept off her feet) and predatory. The old symbol of love as a battle, love to be won, to be taken before it is given.

A kiss is used as part of a religious rapture and deliverance in another film by Andrei Tarkovsky: Offret or The Sacrifice. This encounter will help avert a Third World War. The couple levitate and spin above a bed.

Another example of a kiss giving life and freedom is in David Lynch's Inland Empire. 'Polish Girl' is released from her torment through the travails of Nikki/Susan.

One of the most well-known (and most parodied) kisses of recent times happens in Spider-Man. Spider-Man dangles upside down for Mary Jane. Its novelty and the heroic but vulnerable pose of Spider-Man lends an extra spice. It's unexpected and all the sweeter for it.

There is another novel kiss in Aeon Flux short Gravity. Here the man and the woman lean out of train windows as they rush past.

Now here are four examples of kisses with no physical contact. In Bright Star Fanny kisses John's letter, a surrogate for the man himself. In Pulp Fiction Vincent blows an innocent kiss like a blessing. In Twin Peaks : Fire Walk With Me Bobby kisses the display cabinet that shuts Laura's portrait away. Finally, in Let the Right One In, Oskar and Eli (lying in a box to avoid the sunlight) beat the word 'Kiss' in Morse Code.

And finally, a 'conventional' and perhaps kitsch kiss made triumphant and celebratory by expectation, by music and by the use of fast and slow motion.