'Black Swan' Premieres at Venice Film Festival

Director Darren Aronofsky's newest film, Black Swan, recently premiered at the Venice Film Festival, and is being viewed as a comparison piece to The Wrestler.

"The more I looked into the world of ballet, I actually started to see all these similarities to the world of wrestling," said Aronofsky, 41. "They both have these performers that use their bodies in sort of extremely, intense physical ways. Their entire performance is based on intense physicality."

The film, which stars Natalie Portman, focuses on the world of New York City ballet. Portman plays a ballerina who seeks perfection, and desperately wants to win the role of prima-ballerina. Her overprotective mother, played by Barbara Hershey, is a former dancer and one of the many opposing factors in the movie, as she acts out of concern for her daughter's well-being or jealousy over her success.

Prominent figures in the film include both the White Swan -- the perfectionist -- and the Black Swan -- the unrepressed inner-self.

Portman, who danced as a child, began training a year ago.

"Six months ahead of the film, I went into sort of hyper-training, where five hours a day I was doing both ballet and cross-training, with swimming," Portman said. "A few months before was when we started getting into the choreography. It was very extreme."

Black Swan will be released in select theaters on December 1.

Source: Associated Press