This winter, in dark and icy theaters across the country, Blackswan, a movie just released yet already promising to be a cult classic, takes the story of Swan Lake, a slightly jilted tail of a mistaken identity and love forever-longing and throws it into the oncoming path of a tornado. Mistaken-identity becomes multiple-personalities, and love-longing becomes a mixture of sexual identity confusion and frustration. The dances, while incredible to their core and in the same romantic and powerful style of the original become clouded with hostility, jealousy and rage. While, in all honesty I spent the parts where Natalie Portman's mother cuts her nails and the section where Mila Kunis finds herself stomach deep in shards of glass, looking into my popcorn, the power of the dance scenes, ballet or otherwise were incredibly strong and full of that sense of dark beauty you see when looking at something that seems utterly wrong yet utterly perfect.
Next up on this path of "has the world turned a darker shade of gray", the Royal Ballet in London will stage the world premiere of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a gothic production that follows Alice once again down that rabbit hole but this time into a strange Victorian world full of the usual suspects—a mad hatter, a psychedelic caterpillar—as well as a few twenty-first-century twists, such as a tap-dancing tea party.
If life imitates art and art is a reflection of a moment in society, what does that mean that audiences are no longer engaged in the simple beauty of a story but now demand a twist, or a black feather to make something seem approachable or new. While comedies are my forte and horror flicks my literal nightmare, I'm fascinated by the ability of a film maker, choreographer, photographer or other master of media to take a subject and turn itself on its axis, and offer something new.
If consumers need intrigue to pique theirs, is the psychological thriller the new black?
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