I watched 'Black Swan' with my friend this week. The movie is a drama about a ballet dancer Nina who was pursuing the perfection of her performance. She was an innocent and disciplined person in nature, but pushed herself to the edge of insanity and madness for the purpose of performing the 'Queen' in an innovative 'Swan Lake' ballet show, and finally drove herself in blood. It features a fluent storyline with intense visual and audio effects, making the whole movie compact and thoughtful. The story raises several important issues for deeper thinking: Perfection, fear, multi-personality and obsession. I would like to comment on those topics sequentially in my blogs.
In the movie, Nina wanted to be perfect in the new Swan Lake ballet show, for which she was required to perform both white swan and black swan. She embraced the grace and precision of the white swan but lacked the wildness and lust of the black swan. Disappointed by her own performance, she ran to the former ballet Queen Beth to seek for advices. Beth was paralyzed in hospital because she tried to kill herself when forced down from the ballet Queen to nothing. Before she was forced down, she certainly had a glorious history full of flowers and praises. "Why were you so perfect?" Nina asked. "I was not perfect! I am nothing!" Beth came up with this extremely frank answer. Indeed, the company had tens of professional ballet dancers, with equally good performance. But the "Queen" position was unique. Beth had obviously slept with the director to make herself out of the crowed. If not, she would probably perform little roles who could only admire the flowers and praises for the Queen. However, when the director got innovative show ideas and wanted to promote a new star, she was swiped out immediately. Her perfection was a bubble, glamorous outside, but nothing inside.
Then I thought about 'perfect' people in life, those who were assumed to be perfect --- celebrities, political leaders, institution heads etc... Those people seem to be on top of everything, controlling and enjoying the world's resources. But how many of them are truly perfect? How many of them are actually nothing? Does perfection exist in reality? Or it's only an imagination? Think of Madonna and Gaga, they are great, but they are not perfect. They have more talent in music than ordinary people. But life is much more than that. Would they be better in cooking? They were both straight A students in school, but they will probably do worse in math than I do.:) They have a life and exactly same feelings as ordinary people. Besides happiness, they have sadness. Besides toughness, they have weakness. In one of the interviews, Madonna admitted her mother's early death had caused permanent 'emptiness' in her heart, affecting every decision she made in her life. She always felt lonely and helpless. When she was really desperate, there was no mother to call. She was all by herself. We are all human beings. We are all not perfect. We are living in this imperfect world, dealing with imperfect life. Perfection is only an imagination. By knowing this, it is probably easier to enjoy the life you have. Nobody's life is perfect anyway, there is no reason to dislike yours.
In the movie, Nina wanted to be perfect in the new Swan Lake ballet show, for which she was required to perform both white swan and black swan. She embraced the grace and precision of the white swan but lacked the wildness and lust of the black swan. Disappointed by her own performance, she ran to the former ballet Queen Beth to seek for advices. Beth was paralyzed in hospital because she tried to kill herself when forced down from the ballet Queen to nothing. Before she was forced down, she certainly had a glorious history full of flowers and praises. "Why were you so perfect?" Nina asked. "I was not perfect! I am nothing!" Beth came up with this extremely frank answer. Indeed, the company had tens of professional ballet dancers, with equally good performance. But the "Queen" position was unique. Beth had obviously slept with the director to make herself out of the crowed. If not, she would probably perform little roles who could only admire the flowers and praises for the Queen. However, when the director got innovative show ideas and wanted to promote a new star, she was swiped out immediately. Her perfection was a bubble, glamorous outside, but nothing inside.
Then I thought about 'perfect' people in life, those who were assumed to be perfect --- celebrities, political leaders, institution heads etc... Those people seem to be on top of everything, controlling and enjoying the world's resources. But how many of them are truly perfect? How many of them are actually nothing? Does perfection exist in reality? Or it's only an imagination? Think of Madonna and Gaga, they are great, but they are not perfect. They have more talent in music than ordinary people. But life is much more than that. Would they be better in cooking? They were both straight A students in school, but they will probably do worse in math than I do.:) They have a life and exactly same feelings as ordinary people. Besides happiness, they have sadness. Besides toughness, they have weakness. In one of the interviews, Madonna admitted her mother's early death had caused permanent 'emptiness' in her heart, affecting every decision she made in her life. She always felt lonely and helpless. When she was really desperate, there was no mother to call. She was all by herself. We are all human beings. We are all not perfect. We are living in this imperfect world, dealing with imperfect life. Perfection is only an imagination. By knowing this, it is probably easier to enjoy the life you have. Nobody's life is perfect anyway, there is no reason to dislike yours.
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