“Black Swan” Darren Aronofsky

Dar­ren Aronof­sky’s Black Swan.

Why does every­body always make such a big deal about sto­ry? Who says that every film has to be so say “dra­mat­ic”? Just because a bunch of Greeks decreed it thou­sands of years ago, and yes, that is thou­sands of years ago.

I mean for heaven’s sake,  when they were devis­ing their laws for dra­ma, what they had in mind was a bunch of guys in togas run­ning around half-built the­atres on a hill in the mid­dle of nowhere. How on earth is that going to be rel­e­vant today, when we expect to see things is glo­ri­ous 3D and in fab­u­lous 5.1 Dol­by dig­i­tal sur­round sound? Things moved on a bit since then you know.

And what’s the big deal about dra­ma any­way? I don’t actu­al enjoy being perched for­ev­er on the edge of my seat, won­der­ing what’s going to hap­pen next. Who needs that kind of stress? Some­times it’s nice to be able to sit back and actu­al­ly enjoy a film, with­out nec­es­sar­i­ly being so trans­fixed by what’s hap­pen­ing up there that you can’t take your eyes off the screen.

That was then, but this is now…

Which is what makes Black Swan so mar­vel­lous­ly refresh­ing. There’s no dra­ma in it what­so­ev­er, because bril­liant­ly, they decid­ed to dis­pense with sto­ry entire­ly. And I for one say Bra­vo! Instead, what they give you is a suc­ces­sion of mind­less­ly beau­ti­ful pic­tures that bare absolute­ly no rela­tion­ship to one anoth­er at all, not being bound by the tra­di­tion­al glue that is nar­ra­tive drive.

So instead of hav­ing to wor­ry your pret­ty lit­tle head about what may or may not hap­pen to any of the char­ac­ters up there on the screen, you’re free to lie back and relax. And before you know it, your mind will have won­dered off and your thoughts will be miles away. It was the best two hours I’ve spent at the cin­e­ma in years. Thank you.