re: black swan

spoilers:





I think she died, for three main reasons. First off because Cassel's remark that Ryder's character succeeded so spectacularly in her heyday because of her ability to draw from 'a dark place' which eventually led to self destructive obsession. Because Portman's character seemed to follow the same path (paraphrasing: "I know what you mean about those other girls wanting your spot. I just want to be perfect like you!") as Ryder's, so they both reach levels of performance perfection that equate to at the least, immobility and ill health, and at worse, death.

As it's already been mentioned, the film's plot mirrors Swan Lake. The prince (vincent cassel's character) falls in love with the wrong character (the idealized black swan that he manipulated into fruition), driving the white swan to kill herself.

I presume that the recurring images have to be real, because the hallucinations seemed to be fleeting and only linked thematically. The recurring images I'm speaking of are Portman's self-inflicted wounds. The back scratches and ragged toe nails. So because each of these wounds were self-inflicted they are real through repetition of being shown. The mirror injury was self inflicted. My logic follows that this self-inflicted injury is thus real and in the end fatal