Director Darren Aronofsky’s award-winning film Black Swan is a dark and disturbing psychological thriller, reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie and Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, focusing on the highly competitive and pressurised world of the New York City Ballet.

Natalie Portman plays Nina Sayers, an immature and unworldly, aspiring prima ballerina who gets her big break when she is surprisingly cast in the lead role by the company’s director, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), an enfant terrible whose vision for Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake is to have one artiste dance both the virtuous ‘White Swan’ and her evil twin, the ‘Black Swan’, conventionally two separate parts.

Nina resides with her overbearing mother, Erica (Barbara Hershey), herself a failed ballet dancer who tries to live out her former ambitions vicariously through her daughter’s drive and dedication. The seemingly chaste Nina is a natural choice to play the ‘White Swan’, but her relationship with her mother becomes strained when her sexual curiosity is awoken by her attempts to get in touch with the seductive traits of the ‘Black Swan’.

The chauvinistic Leroy, who had a fling with the recently retired leading dancer Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder), thinks he can coax Nina into character by flirting with her and encouraging her to masturbate in order to loosen up and explore her sexuality, using the example of the new girl Lily (Mila Kunis) as a role model and potential rival for the part if she fails to deliver the goods. Although Aronofsky claims it wasn’t a direct influence, its hard not to compare it to the Powell and Pressburger classic, The Red Shoes, particularly the similarities between the tyrannical impresario Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) and Cassel’s Leroy.

Desperate to succeed and prove herself, Nina goes against her mother’s wishes and lets Lily take her out for the evening. They end up in a club where she allows Lily to spike her drink so she can lose her inhibitions with a view to understanding what it feels like to be the ‘Black Swan’. Aside from accurately aping the plot of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, the film is a clever metaphor for the feminine struggle with sexual awakening, identity, and freedom; if a woman is to attain “perfection” she can’t just be the innocent ‘White Swan’ or the erotic ‘Black Swan’, according to Thomas Leroy she must be both saint and sinner, Mary and Magdalene.

Natalie Portman thoroughly deserved the Best Actress Oscar for portraying Nina’s descent into madness as she tries to come to terms with years of living with an overprotective and possessive parent, as well as the immense physical and emotional strain of training for the life of a premier ballet dancer, an existence which allows for very little outside of it. Nina’s mental breakdown is dramatically illustrated through her painful bodily transformation into the ‘Black Swan’, which culminates in a final flourish of feathered wings sprouting from her shoulders. Just like her character in the ballet story, the ‘White Nina’ is cheated out of love by the ‘Black Lily’ who steals her coveted role and seduces the man she desires instead, driving her to suicide.

Cinematographer, Matthew Libatique, elected to shoot with a combination of digital 1080p/24 source HDCAM and analogue Super 16 cameras, giving the film the dual feel of both docudrama and surreal fantasy, equally stunning on the Blu-ray release, particularly the climatic staged performance of Swan Lake with the fine detail on the jet black feathers looking particularly impressive. The DTS-HD master audio soundtrack is of a similar standard with a demonstrable dynamic range between Tchaikovsky’s classical score and the suspenseful sound effects which help to heighten the incredibly tense psychological drama. There is also a strong suite of extras all presented in HD, the focus of which is the hour-long documentary Black Swan Metamorphosis, which explores each facet of the production, including in-depth discussions with Darren Aronofsky and Natalie Portman.

Black Swan is a very satisfying adult-oriented thriller. It’s complex, but compared to Aronofsky’s earlier movies, it’s not so dense as to make it obscure or inaccessible to general audiences and, consequently, this relatively low budget movie, produced by Mike Medavoy’s new independent film company Phoenix Pictures, has enjoyed a healthy return at the box office and garnered many awards.

It has got to be one of the most eagerly anticipated Blu-ray releases of all time and finally, almost 5 years since the hidef format launched, Apocalypse Now has been released almost a year to the day after The Godfather: Coppola Restoration collection.  The Full Disclosure package is every bit as impressive, if not more so, as it includes both the original cut and the ‘Redux’ extended version of the film plus Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse which I saw when it was released at the Cinema in 1991 and then wore out the VHS tape, but this is the first time it has ever been released in a digital format in the UK.

Firstly, let me confirm that all 3 discs included in the Full Disclosure edition are Region Free and boast full 1080p resolution and a DTS-HD 5.1 soundtrack.  The first disc contains both the 1979 theatrical cut (153 mins) and 2001’s controversial ‘Redux’ version that restores the 49 mins of cut scenes, including the lavish French Plantation sequence.  I think both cuts of the film are valid, on balance I prefer the ‘Redux’ version although I agree that it changes the pacing of the film but it also helps expand it beyond the confines of the Vietnam war and leans more towards the source material of Joseph Conrad’s story, Hearts of Darkness, on which the film is based.  The 2^nd disc is packed full of additional material, most notably two recent hour long filmed discussions by Francis Coppola with writer John Milius and star Martin Sheen, an interview by Roger Ebert at the Cannes Film Festival premier of the ‘Redux’ version, Orson Welles’ Mercury Radio production of Hearts of Darkness and Marlon Brando reading the full version of T.S. Elliot’s poem The Hollow Men.

The 3rd disc features the hidef version of Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse which is superb.  I had worried because there were rumours that it might be cut to remove some of the more uncomfortable moments of anguish that Coppola had to endure whilst making, what many beleive to be, his masterpiece; instead there is an audio commentary track, featuring both Francis and his wife Eleanor who made the documentary, providing a wistful, fresh perspective to some of the insanity that transpired whilst shooting in the Philippines.  This is one of the most engaging documentaries ever made about the cinematic process and worth the price of ownership alone!  Also included are numerous photos, storyboards, posters and other marketing material, along with a 57 page extract of the first draft by John Milius containing Coppola’s hand written notes which (if you sit close enough to the TV!) makes interesting reading.

To complete the package is a 48 page book containing an introductory letter from Francis Ford Coppola outlining the contents in detail.  My only criticism so far, as I’ve yet to wade through all of the supplements, is that there is no discrete chapter list for the ‘Redux’ version, which means you can’t go straight to the restored sequences; a forgivable oversight to an otherwise perfect collection.  I have owned more versions of this film than I care to remember and this is, without doubt, the best I have ever seen Apocalypse Now look on the small screen.  Let’s just hope that Coppola’s American Zoetrope cohort takes heed and releases the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies on Blu-ray in the near future.

After the phenomenal success of independent publishing house Pennant Books with its stable of football fan culture, sporting legends and true crime titles regularly topping the best seller lists, the indomitable Cass Pennant has reinvented himself once again by forming Urban Edge Films, which releases its debut feature length documentary Casuals this month with Pennant himself at the helm as writer and producer.

The film was originally conceived as a 25th anniversary follow-up to co-producer Ian ‘Butch’ Stuttard’s seminal Hooligan documentary which first aired on television in 1985 and charted the turbulent period of Pennant’s life as a prominent leader of West Ham United’s notorious Inter City Firm. The idea of “Hooligan Revisited” was to focus less on the violent rivalry of the terraces but emphasise the street fashion the gangs created that would ultimately unify them and seep out to a wider consciousness across the country as a whole; establishing Casuals as the last working class male street fashion coming from the UK, following in the tradition of Mods, Teddy Boys and Punks.

Pennant is no stranger to movies and has served as a consultant on many of the major motion pictures concerning both football violence and fan culture including the original version of The Firm and Green Street, along with the television series The Real Football Factories.  In 2009 his vivid autobiography Cass was successfully transferred to the big screen so this transition to film production was almost inevitable.

It is obvious from the first moments of Casuals that this is going to be the definitive documentary and that Pennant and director Mick Kelly have meticulously interviewed all the leading authorities on the subject, from Southern Mods to Northern Soul Boys. One of the enduring questions is exactly where did the Casuals movement have its roots? There is no easy answer but this extraordinary and insightful film strips away the myths and tells the truth about an indelible faction which revived the fashion industry to leave a lasting influence on today’s label-crazy youth.

Mindful of the North/South divide, both sides are equally represented, with the likes of Garry Bushell recalling his days as a music journalist for Sounds magazine, commenting on the Casual band Accent’s 15 minutes of fame when they played to the crowds at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge ground, and Peter Hooton lead singer of Liverpudlian band The Farm,, who also started the fanzine The End in the early 80s which was the first publication to regularly report on the Casual scene and has just been reissued by Sabotage Times in a single book volume; Hooton also voices the film’s compelling narration.

With over 50 individuals interviewed, the filmmakers had to make some cuts for time, but luckily are over an hour’s worth of additional interviews that are included on the DVD as extras. Of the many passionate experts featured, author of the pictorial book A Casual Look and avid collector Nick Sarjeant probably sums it up best: “It’s not just about what you were wearing, but also how you wore it. Not just your clothes but your hair and even the ‘manner in which you walked’. You had to have that ‘attitude’, saying, like ‘Here I am’.” an attitude that is evident in every frame of this film as it tours the country, meeting the key people for whom this was never simply a fad of fashion but a way of life.