I wanted to write about it, but I just hit a brick wall every time I try.
I found it an extremely painful film to watch, on all sorts of layers, but ultimately deeply unsatisfying and kind of hollow. I wish there'd been more to Nina than your standard issue uptight girl; I wish Lily had felt more like a real person (although in fairness she barely got any *real* screentime, I guess!). I wish they'd been less heavy-handed with their use of mirrors - I felt bludgeoned by the motif, rather than interested. I never felt like there was any ambiguity to anything - hey, look, Nina's in white again and Lily's in black! - and there was never any other possible ending to the story. Maybe that's partly because they stuck so closely to Swan Lake, but I never felt like there was anything at stake for Nina. What does she want at any point? What does she like? Does she enjoy anything? Is there ever any hope she might survive, or find any enjoyment in anything, or ... fuck, have a second of fun? She started off mentally unstable and ended up dead and was miserable the whole time without even a glimmer of hope. And that ... just wasn't affecting for me, or interesting.
Maybe that says more about me than the film, but I couldn't really feel anything during the finale because I never once doubted that things would end up that way, and even if she hadn't died, there wasn't anything brighter on her horizon anyway, so what's the point?
I think I feel like the film just portrayed her as a hysteric, with all the misogyny that term implies.
I never felt like there was any ambiguity to anything - hey, look, Nina's in white again and Lily's in black!
Exactly.
I didn't think she died in the end though! I thought the director calling her "little princess" (as Lily predicted) symbolised the "death" of goody two shoes Nina and the birth of the new "Beth". But this was unsatisfying to me because it was predictable quite early on.
I found it an extremely painful film to watch, on all sorts of layers, but ultimately deeply unsatisfying and kind of hollow. I wish there'd been more to Nina than your standard issue uptight girl; I wish Lily had felt more like a real person (although in fairness she barely got any *real* screentime, I guess!). I wish they'd been less heavy-handed with their use of mirrors - I felt bludgeoned by the motif, rather than interested. I never felt like there was any ambiguity to anything - hey, look, Nina's in white again and Lily's in black! - and there was never any other possible ending to the story. Maybe that's partly because they stuck so closely to Swan Lake, but I never felt like there was anything at stake for Nina. What does she want at any point? What does she like? Does she enjoy anything? Is there ever any hope she might survive, or find any enjoyment in anything, or ... fuck, have a second of fun? She started off mentally unstable and ended up dead and was miserable the whole time without even a glimmer of hope. And that ... just wasn't affecting for me, or interesting.
Maybe that says more about me than the film, but I couldn't really feel anything during the finale because I never once doubted that things would end up that way, and even if she hadn't died, there wasn't anything brighter on her horizon anyway, so what's the point?
I think I feel like the film just portrayed her as a hysteric, with all the misogyny that term implies.
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Exactly.
I didn't think she died in the end though! I thought the director calling her "little princess" (as Lily predicted) symbolised the "death" of goody two shoes Nina and the birth of the new "Beth". But this was unsatisfying to me because it was predictable quite early on.
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