On Sunday we went to see Black Swan.

A curious film. On one level, it's very well constructed -- very beautiful, and very suspenseful and looming as we watch the mental disintegration of the central ballet dancer, increasingly besieged by a manipulative mother, a predatory director, and a jealous co-star. On another level, it's just a collection of cliches -- flaky, delicate ballerina; nasty co-dancers out to shaft the star; the hackneyed passionate-portrayals-need-passionate-experiences line (does that mean you have to have murdered to play a murderer?); and the really old Romantic cliche that perfection demands death. I get that it's a melodrama -- it's supposed to be a parallel of a not what you might call realistic ballet story, after all -- but I felt that the suspense of the descent into mental illness would have worked better had it been just a tad more subtle.

Anyway, we emerged from the dark world of the cinema to the bright world of the Melbourne streets, in search of Nando's and sun cream.

Then I worked. I guess no-one makes movies about the struggles of PhD students... But they certainly feel dark enough at times.