It’s weird for me to realize that Black Swan (2010) is about 4 years old now. My first time seeing it was in theaters and back then I had no idea how to wrap my head around what I had watched. What was real and what was imagined?
Now 4 years older, and feeling a little wiser, I think I finally understand some of the themes of this movie. The movie opens up with normal narration and slowly starts to lose its sense of reality.
In some parts of the movie you can’t quite tell if something really happened or if it’s something the main character Nina (Natalie Portman) hallucinated. I think after watching the movie a second time over I came to understand that the breaks in reality stemmed from Nina’s lack of ability to deal with the immense stress of getting the lead role in Swan Lake. Pair that with her unnerving need for perfection and a highly competitive ballet company and it’s no wonder that she went crazy! I think the turning point in the movie is after Nina agrees to go out with Lily (Mila Kunis) for a night and ends up unknowingly (or willingly?) taking drugs. From then on the perception of the movie changes as Nina rolls for the first time and has the famous yet imaginary sex scene with Lily.
I think there is also a motif with the rash on Nina’s shoulder. The first time she notices it you see that she tries to hide it. I figured it was probably out of embarrassment. But once her mother discovers it you then realize that she has some sort of bad habit relating to that. It makes me wonder if it happens often? Granted, her mother is extremely overbearing about it so I understand why she would want to hide that from her mother. I also realized that this was the first signs of Nina’s stress coming out. As the movie progresses the rash gets worse and Nina hallucinates bleeding all over the place. Her mind gets the best of her and eventually she starts to see alternate versions of herself becoming more like the black swan that she so desperately wants to convey.
In probably the most confusing scene in the film (for me) Nina attacks Lily who she thinks is after her roll in the ballet. In one moment Lily is dead, and the next she is alive. What just happened? Nina didn’t actually fight with Lily. Lily embodied all of Nina’s insecurities and came after her—but only in her head. In real life, Lily was just another dancer who probably wanted for Nina to do well. What had really happened was an internal struggle between the sweet innocent Nina and the new crazy black swan Nina. And in the end of the movie we find out she stabbed herself. What a twist! The last lines of the whole film, Nina says her last words, “I was perfect” and the scene fades to white as she most likely dies. I found this to be super powerful with the theme of the film as Nina was always after perfection.
kp590.wordpress.com 
I also said a similar thing that Nina actually becomes the Swan. One thing I didn’t think about was what Lily represented within the plot. I really liked your take on it. Also, in terms of formatting, I think the pictures woven in throughout makes the text flow smoothly one into the other. Well done!
I like the screenshots you used and how you have them next to the words not just by themselves. It looks nice. I agree that Nina’s imagination and reality can get really confusing.