Black Swan
In his thrilling psychodrama, Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky successfully blackens the idyllic preconceptions of ballet in his modern day film noir. Nominee of 14 awards and winner of 3 including best director and best film, Black Swan provides an intriguing opening to the 2010 Venice Film Festival.
The film centres on Nina, a beautiful anxious ballet dancer played by Natalie Portman. She strives for perfection but in doing so has become susceptible to mental illness which is heightened further by her controlling and equally fragile mother who relentlessly reminds Nina of the ballet career she herself abandoned to become a mother. The casting director, played by Vincent Cassel, is looking for a new swan queen to replace the ageing and tremendously bitter, Beth MacIntyre played by Winona Ryder. In order to dance her dream part, swan queen in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake she is required to embody both the black and the white swan. Figuratively and visually, she is already the white swan with her porcelain skin and apprehensive nature but she needs to develop an alter ego that embraces the corrupt nature of the black swan. In cinematic terms, she needs to become the princess and the femme fatale. Lily, played by Mila Kunis, embodies everything Nina requires to become the black swan. She is late, inaccurate, bolshie and overtly sexual; everything Nina is not. In her quest to find her inner ‘black swan’ she labels Kunis a threat after she is told to admire her ability to ‘let herself go’ and develops severe paranoia that she too will be pushed out, like the queen before her.
Nina leads a sheltered virginal life which is emphasised further through the pink and fluffy aesthetics in her juvenile bedroom. After her formal announcement as Swan Queen, Cassel urges Nina to go home and ‘touch herself’ in an attempt to find her inner sexuality and passion. Lily is determined to befriend Nina and loosen her sexual inhibitions but it is unclear whether their friendship is genuine or whether Lily has an alter motive. This confusion is amplified by the extreme nature of Nina’s paranoia. Nina develops a small rash on her shoulder which worsens with the regression of her madness. As Nina’s condition deteriorates, Aronofsky superimposes Nina’s face on other bodies for a split second, emphasising her fragile mental health. Nina also experiences vivid hallucinations including self harming, sexual encounters and murder. Black Swan addresses universal fears and amplifies them with an appropriately perverse soundtrack. Playing on a woman’s breakdown, Nina alienates herself from all she knows in order to embrace her own black swan, using sex, drugs and alcohol to assist her. She becomes a woman of no remorse, ensuring no one stands in the way of her dream, especially not her mother. She begins to feel increasingly unsafe, even in her own home where she feels the need to barricade her bedroom door.
Aronofsky creates an unusual but fitting film, combining the delights of high cultured ballet with the erotica, illness, drugs and death. Nina’s disease makes it increasingly difficult to decipher between her reality and her illness which adds to the fantastical and bizarre plot of the film. Aronofsky concerned himself with portraying Nina’s deterioration and appeared to be particularly fond of mirrors which symbolise confusion and split personalities. Aronofsky’s previous film, The Wrestler (2008) has similarities to Black Swan in that by striving for professional perfection they ultimately sacrificed their own happiness. Portman delivers an admirable performance, at last exhibiting her true ability in this dark and thrilling production. For her role as Nina she was duly nominated for 17 awards and became the deserving winner of 9 including a BAFTA and a Golden Globe for best actress.
Verdict
Black Swan is a provocative, hedonistic experience and perhaps not for everyone. In order to appreciate the erratic nature of the film, logical thought needs to be cast aside to make space for this exhilarating and often frightening psychological ride.
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