Black Swan: The Review

I have just finished watching the Black Swan, and I'm trying really hard to figure out how to begin this review. There is so much I have to say about it that my mind is muddled up as to what I should praise first.

Ok, I think it's better if I start with the word that summed up the film for me. 

Perfection. 

If there is any superlatives to perfection, somebody better give me it because I am out of words. Darren Aronofsky is a genius and with this he composed a great cast of extremely gifted and accomplished actors. Natalie Portman was simple astounding in her performance as Nina Sayers, while Vincent Cassel's portrayal of the tormenting Thomas Leroy was eerily seductive. Mila Kunis was equally provocative with her guileful Lily and Barbara Hershey was everything a controlling mother should be. Winona Ryder was also irrefutable as the aged prima ballerina, scorned and abandoned for the young ingenue, reminding us that the short pause in her career never tarnished her talent. 

The story is as old and dusty as The Archers' 1948 film The Red Shoes, but Aronofsky takes it on and runs with it, producing a darker and more sinister brainchild. The film revolves around a girl, extreme in her hunger for acclaim, who gets destroyed by her passion in dance and by the role she lived to play. It really is just like The Red Shoes, but Aronofsky stops the comparison there. In some ways Black Swan is actually better than the former because it explores the seedier side of the performance world. Sure we'd all love to see a nice tragic film where the girl plummets to her death to escape the torture of choosing between love and dance, but what Aronofsky does to distance Swan is give us an in depth look at the realities of being a dancer. Well, not the metamorphosis part but with things like eating disorders, and intense pressure causing extreme behaviour, I mean who doesn't want to delve into that? I'm sure my sister would enjoy seeing the film through her Psychologist eyes. 

In Black Swan, Nina replaces Beth as the prima ballerina of Leroy's company, winning the titular role of the Swan Queen. During its production, we are shown that underneath her pristine facade Nina suffers from psychiatric symptoms (she self-harms subconsciously, has very elaborate hallucinations, etc.). She meets Lily, who is cast as her understudy and she feels threatened by it especially when she constantly compared to her by Thomas. At home Nina suffers from her mother's controlling attitude, while at the ballet studio she is under constant strain from Leroy as he keeps forcing her to let go of her inhibitions. Ultimately, all of this accumulates into escalating her schizophrenia, eventually causing her to lose her mind as prelude to her very own swan song, but not before leaving us with a performance that was (as she finally resolves in the end) perfection.

Never in my life did I expect to be frightened by a pair of nail scissors, or physio-therapy. It was so unexpected that something as real as a dancer having bleeding toes and cracking bones would put the thrill in thriller. I kept looking away whenever Barbara Hershey cut Natalie's finger nails, or when Winona stabbed her face with a nail file. But all is not lost with this nastiness, as there is enough girl-on-girl action in to keep the men interested (to which John scoffed and said it was relatively tame), while the rest of us gaze in awe of Natalie and Mila's dancing. I still find it impressive that they managed to learn actual performance ballet in six months (overall a year for Natalie)! Though Aronofsky had to use doubles when the scene asked for both actresses to dance en pointe, from the waist up both Natalie and Mila owned up to it and dazzled us as modern-day Anna Pavlovas. 

Finally, I saved all of my praise to the ingenuity of basing Nina's schizo-crazy around the Swan Queen plot. How freaky was all that leg-snapping and chicken-skin, feather growing transformation?! Like Thomas says in the movie, Nina doesn't have any problems with the part of the White Swan and it was the Black Swan's extroversion that prevents her from reaching her true potential. With all of the pressure put on her by her mother, the company, her pedantic nature and Thomas, its such a fitting end to use the iconic death scene as her final attempt at freeing herself and achieving the perfection she's strived for all her life. She achieved her own personal nirvana, that orgasm that was constantly denied to her. It is yet another great reminder that perfection comes at a very high price. 

She's already won the Golden Globe for Best Actress, so here's hoping that Natalie repeats this feat at the BAFTAs and the Academy Awards! I have always thought that it has been a long time coming for this incredible actress, and I sincerely hope that this year she gets the accolades that she deserves.

xoxo