Arnofsky's Black Swan

Darren Arnofsky is a passionate man, something you can see immediately in his films and when he gives interviews. He does not release too often, being frugal with his interests and talents, but it does his productions a lot of good. They are always masterfully written, touching an ambiguous, sweeping subject that has to be a challenge to represent on screen, like the nature of addiction (Requiem for a Dream) or struggle to combat cancer and save love (The Fountain).

In his latest effort, entitled Black Swan, he sets about investigating the sacrifice an artist has to make to produce a mesmerizing, divine performance. In a story that brings to mind early Roman Polanski's films, like Tenant or Repulsion, he traces one young ballerina's efforts to get a double role of the swan queen in Tschaikovsky's classic ballet and then her psychological decline as she becomes obsessed by the task she's faced with. Natalie Portman breathes life into her character, lending credibility to multiple transformations she has to go through in preparation for the premiere, going from the disappointment of being an eternal underachiever, to the elation of being picked as prima ballerina to decent into madness as she puts everything she has into the role trying to live up to expectations.

Expectations towards a performance artist is another fascinating theme in Black Swan and Arnofsky turns this rather complex and, at best, niche topic into a chilling psychological thriller. Trapped by her own ambitions, twisted pressure from her mother, herself an unfulfilled ballet star seeking vicarious achievement, envy of her fellow company members and demanding visions of the maestro, she gradually loses herself and plummets into madness. At some point, it is hard to tell her haunting hallucinations from reality, her inner universe of a conflicted, oversensitive artist and the eluding normalcy of the day-to-day world.

Black Swan is reported to have achieved an instant cult status in the ballet community. A cautionary tale that features sexual exploitation, eating disorders, stress injuries and enormous peer pressure ballerinas are subject to, it holds up a mirror to the darker side of the trade according to many insiders.

from NYT:
. to require nothing but total submission to the craft
. to peel patches of skin from your fingers
. psychological torture
. a kind of discipline and dedication that can flip into obsession
. make your body into something otherworldly
. an increasingly crowded head
. lookalikes, mirrored images, unhinged visions
. visceral = profound (z trzewi)
. a cineaste = a cinema enthusiast
. a martyr to her art
. to explore human extremes
. predilection = preference, tendency
. the artistics pursuit of the ideal
. a sexcapade = an illicit affair
. to opt for grit over gloss
. as sharply defined as a picket fence
. an adult guardian

The Raw Men Empire in Poznań

That was another snap concert I decided to go to on the spur of the moment. I read about the Raw Men Empire in the local paper, checked out their mySpace and let me girlfriend and her friend know. They said OK and we went to Poznań's Meskalina after my work. I admit I was looking for some relief the middle of a busy month, shuttling between different jobs and home.

The paper preview compared them to Joanna Newsom (which is odd, considering it's a four-piece male band) and highlighted their self-proclaimed "pop Dylan" style, a freaky blend of folk and tens of other inspirations. It wasn't enough to have me at hello, but after paying mySpace a visit I was in. Not totally, though, and we quipped before the gig that it was merely OK - nothing to write home about really.

The show was great, though. Very lively throughtout - with a couple of instant hits, like Between you and me (with sweeetly poetic lytics that, as one band member admitted, were about friendship) or the thunderous song about the Isreali girls, the best-looking girls in the world (with a tongue-in-cheek political edge).

They reminded me of a lot of other bands, from Fleet Foxes (when they fell into vocal harmonies) to Lambchop (similarly, a bunch of guys doing music together for fun) to Sparklehorse (in darker moments). The fact that I forked out 40PLN for their two EPs (5 songs each) speaks volumes of their ability to impress the audience.

On culture, arts and education

I'm a bit old-fashioned in my attachment to spoken word and BBC Radio 4 is one of my favourite providers of intelligent talk I can be totally consumed by for hours on end. It wasn't any different when I listened to Alain de Botton's point of view, published here, in which he managed to express both his deep reverence and severe reservations about the modern academia, especially the humanities. He made a compelling case for liberal education, preoccupied with a human being, more emotional and more relevant to people's everyday concerns, attacking at the same time the aloofness of academic research and mores. It was a well-rounded, passionate call for changes, even though you can get a feeling that some of his ideals are a really long shot.

Pulitzer for infant hyperthermia

It's a sprawling narrative by Gene Weingarten on a heart-wrenching topic of parents unintentionally leaving their babies in a car in sweltering heat to die of hyperthermia. It won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. It traces the stories of several bereaved mothers and fathers who made what looks like an unlikely mistake - forgetting there was their baby in the back seat of their car. Due to distraction, change of routine or stress, a handful of Americans each year kill their own children this way, opening up festering wounds for themselves and their families, as well as challenging the justice system with cases of unusual manslaughter.

It's a gripping article, impossible to put down as it shuttles between culprits of several such incidents, reporting their grief, sense of loss and survival tactics after a tiny memory glitch led to hurt of unspeakable proportions. We are also let in on research results into similar accidents that indict human brain as liable for failing to provide defences in such situations (Swiss Cheese Model), look at legal battles that result from a unique status of defendants and take a glimpse at car safety devices and tips that can help prevent further infant hyperthermia deaths. The piece stands out on originality, literary value and passionate, many-sided reporting.

Pickle the pain

Can you pickle your pain, as in Yeasayer's 2080? And what can this bring?

Action adventure

I feel indebted to whatever it was that inspired me to purchase a DVD with Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, a classic action adventure that I remember being enchanted with as a young boy.

Gladwell's Tipping Point

A full decade after it was first published in the US, I gobbled up Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point, a perfect tiny book for daily commuters hungry for some modern food for thought.