Nina is a passionate ballet performer, who has dedicated her life to the dance. To enable Verizon Media and our partners to process your personal data select 'I agree', or select 'Manage settings' for more information and to manage your choices. Nina struggles with this. Fans of combat sports who want to see fight choreography that’s borderline gratuitous but well-executed. Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan ends with the death of Nina Sayers, the film’s protagonist. ( Log Out / Somewhere, Teban walks away but will meet Chongki later. In one scene, Nina is intoxicated and has a sex dream about Lily. He confronts Thomas about this who tells her, “The only thing standing in your way is yourself” (Aronofsky, 2010). Preparation Program for Perpetual Profession of Vows 2019, Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, https://allenjambalaya.wordpress.com/about/. Nina has long looked at Beth as perfection in human form, so seeing these things happen to Beth certainly heightens Nina’s awareness of the fleeting nature of her stardom. Translated in English as the grace of Mary, Gracia de Maria is a slum area in the Tondo that shelters to poor and innocent bystanders constantly caught in the middle of the “drug wars” between the police and the drug dealers. The same can be said of the audience. operation to capture the elusive … ( Log Out / The police squad ends up trapped inside the slums while being hunted down by the druglord’s many minions. ( Log Out / While Hamlet fervently desires death, he is afraid and wonders “what dreams may come / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,” Nina has no such fear, for her there are no dreams to come after death, and whatever dreams she might have could not be any worse than the life she lives. Is The End of Ang Huling El Bimbo: The Musical a Happy Ending Story? It was during this period of time that Rudyard Kipling wrote his famous novella “The Man […], Thucydides set out to narrate the history of what he believed would be a great war, one requiring both great power and great leadership. She can perfectly perform the White Swan but has a hardship with the Black Swan role. There’s a reason it’s rated for 16 years old and above, after all! He’s also an official Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) diver. Those who want to see a heroine be treated with the same respect as a male protagonist. And as the night wears on, she gets progressively more beaten-up and even more done with everyone’s B.S. What starts out as a search for herself turns into an identity crisis that she cannot handle since she cannot distinguish real life from delusions. An element that clearly shows Nina’s struggles with her identity is the motif of violence. She got moves! But we’ve been so desensitized to violence in the news that it’s important to watch a film that can still make you feel something about the horrors of the drug war. Nina wants to be Black Swan but the only way is for her to let go of her restrictions. Since Gracia de Maria is quite populated, Team Alpha held some bystanders as hostages to silence them as they might blow the team’s cover. This actress and avid surfer played Maria in the ABS-CBN drama series The Blood Sisters. Find out more about how we use your information in our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy. This movie is for an audience that wants, no, needs a sobering dose of realism and self-awareness. There was no response from Team Alpha so Chongki kills the man. In this thriller series, eight different points of view provide tantalizing clues to the perpetrator of a gruesome crime fueled by social media. Although he measured greatness through both […], A Prayer For Owen Meany, by John Irving is a humorous, thrilling novel that takes the reader to unexpected places. Nina is not ignorant of the fleeting nature of these earthy accomplishments, and it is for this reason that she deems her death to be so beautiful. I got the shock of my life when I saw Anne Curtis’ fight scenes. The fight reminds me of zombie apocalypse films and Metal Slug, the video game we used to play before in a playstation console. The saturation from neon lights or the harsh illumination by an explosive Molotov cocktail indicate that there’s about to be a throwdown of epic proportions. How long will you hide your face from me? Hamlet bemoans the fact that “the dread of something after death, / the undiscovered country from whose bourn / no traveler returns, puzzles the will, / and makes us rather bear the ills we have / than fly to others we know not of,” but Nina refuses to bear the ills she has, and instead chooses to fly to the “others [she knows] not of,” thus refuting Hamlet’s claim that “conscience does make cowards of us all.” Rather than cowardly living out her days, Nina chooses to go out when her life is at its zenith. The film engages in a whirl of instability that comes with the wrestling of the protagonist’s identities to clarify her reality. When a tragedy is a triumph: The Nina Sayers Story. This Is the True Story of How Nina Simone’s Childhood Home Was Saved. Abandoned buildings are a thing in the past local action films and I am glad it got a reprisal (no, I’m kidding). Detective Dela Cruz (Lao Rodriguez) leads the mission and they decide to use the druglord’s associate named Teban (Alex Calleja), who’s currently in their custody, as bait. A young woman (Molly Nutley) from a small town has big aspirations as a dancer and disguises herself as a man to perform in a struggling drag club. ), which a lot of us turn a blind eye to. The actress was in last year’s entry to the QCinema International Film Festival, the indie film Dormitoryo (Mga Walang Katapusang Kwarto). Black Swan Nina Sayers, a young dancer in a prestigious New York City ballet company, lives with her mother, Erica, a former dancer. Team Alpha is clearly outnumbered but it seems that the goons have difficulty catching them. The film also shows Nina’s struggles as she tries to grow and soar on her own. For Nina life is comprised of the sorrowful parts of Psalms 6 &13. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. As Nina lies on the stage with the blood from her stomach spreading all over her white dress, she says “it was perfect.” Indeed it was, from Nina’s point of view it was the perfect ending. Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan ends with the death of Nina Sayers, the film’s protagonist. She instead dances the role with restrictions and control which does not work because she’s using White Swan’s motivations which are similar to her personality. Get tips and ideas in OUTLINE. The opening words of Psalm 13, which appeal to a silent God whom the speaker feels abandoned by are comparable to Nina’s hopeless state: “How long, Lord? Salamishah Tillet and Produced by Ingrid Abramovitch , Elle Decor • September 17, 2020. You’ve seen her as a regular host of Showtime and you've probably used her lippies from BLK Cosmetics. With a gun pointed at him, Biggie casually tells Manigan what is the drug war all about in a nutshell. This causes her to be furious and angry as she grows increasingly violent towards everyone around her, especially with her mother. In finding her new self, she lost herself. Shortly after recruitment, Director Alvarez ( Nonie Buencamino) assigned their team to undergo an anti-drug “buy bust” (title drop!) As Nina seeks maturity, her close encounters with her mother and other characters grow exceedingly violent. If you watch the film, you’ll know why they brought a mixed martial artist in the person of Brandon Vera. We are now getting introduced with three different groups inside the slum: PDEA officers, Biggie’s goons, and the Gracia de Maria’s residents (which will play a vital role in the film later). Women who are sick and tired of seeing cardboard cutout female characters portrayed as sex objects in mainstream action films. Br. If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. She now discovers the meth lab. The MMA fighter’s first local acting role was in the GMA series Kamandag starring Richard Gutierrez (trained by Brandon himself). It hauled all four 2019 Gawad Urian awards for best picture, best cinematography, best music, and best production design. Nina Manigan (Anne Curtis) is a new member of Captain Bernie Lacson’s (Victor Neri) police squad. Throughout the film’s 130-minute running time, we only see the actual commentary about the corrupt system and the horrors of the drug war at the tail-end of the movie. Information about your device and internet connection, including your IP address, Browsing and search activity while using Verizon Media websites and apps. As she does this, it further drives her character to become Black Swan. We and our partners will store and/or access information on your device through the use of cookies and similar technologies, to display personalised ads and content, for ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Structurally, the book is not in chronological order. You'll be shaken awake from your self-absorbed stupor and be reminded that while the events are fictitious, this is the sort of killing and corruption that takes place in our country on a regular basis. Lily performs a perfect Black Swan, and she immediately becomes her greatest rival. It was a trap all along. In her rebuttal to Hamlet, Nina ascribes to the beliefs of James Joyce’s Gabriel Conroy, the protagonist (to the extent that there is a protagonist) of “The Dead.” After learning of the untimely demise of his wife’s first love, Gabriel, while thinking about his aging aunts says, “one by one we were all becoming shades. The Manila poverty depicted in the film is obscured in darkness and storm with Manigan as the “final girl.” She acts as the audience surrogate as she navigates the labyrinthine walls of the slum area and fends off criminals and settlers who come at her like a horde of fast-paced zombies. We now hear one of the most memorable dialogues we will ever hear about the so-called “drug war”. Get ready for a kickass heroine, neon lights, and leopard-print pants. In a mazelike Manila slum, at war with incensed civilians and a brutal cartel, special agent Nina Manigan must fight her way through one fierce night.