#1: Black Swan

Intensity. Passion. Rapture. And that’s just the lesbian sex scene.

Black Swan is undoubtedly my favourite film of this year. 

Natalie Portman had her breakout performance at the tender age of 13 in the captivating Léon: The Professional. And while she impressed in V for Vendetta, I never believed she could outdo her stunning debut – until I saw Black Swan. It is the performance of a lifetime. Portman shows incredible versatility and mastery of her craft. Her emotions range from apprehension to euphoria, from hope to crushing disappoitment, from jealousy to lust and beyond.

Fresh from directing the surprisingly poignant The Wrestler, director Darren Aronofsky has made his best film yet. He wraps us in the mindset of a fragile ballerina as she undegoes a life-changing metamorphosis. She begins as the embodiment of the White Swan: innocent, pure and uncorrupted. Portman is still a child at heart. Her girlish voice is an octave higher than normal. She is in her twenties but her room could be that of a twelve-year-old: dominated by pinks and whites, filled with embroidered cushions and stuffed animals. 

Her transfiguration into the Black Swan works on so many levels. She is reaching her personal dream and professional peak. She is belatedly putting childhood innocence behind her and embracing her adult sexuality. She is rejecting virtue and embracing sin. And all the while she is becoming more and more emotionally unstable. She becomes so detached from reality and her imagination invades her consciousness. Her paranoia becomes our paranoia and her fears becomes ours. We can’t turn our eyes away. We are paralysed and helpless as we watch her dream turn into an endless nightmare.

Black Swan teaches us that the quest for perfection is futile and ultimately leads to self-destruction. But it is itself a masterpiece, a near-perfect film. It is head and shoulders above the competition. And it is a worthy victor of the Corzie 2011.

Well, there you have it. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these recommendations as much as I have writing them. I strongly urge you to watch all of these films. They’re the crème de la crème of this year’s cinema. Each and every one is worth your time (and money, if you still buy DVDs). 

Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year.