What’s black and white and red all over?
This is a very interesting movie for Darren Aronofsky to have made right after The Wrestler. Similar in their focus on the mental side of a physical being, a professionally physical being, The Wrestler is realistic, relentlessly so, while this film seems to dip its toe in surrealism. I think this one is better off for Aronofsky’s having made the previous one, though I think for many reasons it matches and surpasses a superb artistic achievement.
Natalie Portman, who gives a remarkable performance after damn near turning into Audrey Hepburn overnight, plays Nina Sayers, a technically proficient young ballet dancer living at home and striving for her big break. She is shortlisted for the starring role in a revamped Swan Lake, directed by a prickly Frenchman named Tomas (the perfectly cast Vincent Cassel). She is distracted during her audition by the conspicuous entrance of Lily (Mila Kunis) and is passed over for the part. When Nina goes to see Tomas the next day, he criticizes her style of perfectionism, saying that it’s essential for her to let her humanity shine through, taking her and her mechanical prowess to a new place. From then on, more or less, for the good of the role, Nina undertakes the difficult challenge of unleashing her passionate side, however one does that.
That’s hardly to say that little else happens in the movie which, by the way, is absolutely terrifying. The great juxtaposition of this movie is the refined elegance of the ballet and, really, some of the conventions of horror movies. What I enjoy most is that these conventions, and whatever weirdness there is, is not for its own sake. Nothing wrong at all with straight-up horror movies, but here there’s more to it. The dread comes on subtly but builds itself up until there seems to be no safe haven for Nina or for us. More than trying to figure out just what the hell was going on, I just wanted to protect this girl from all that was threatening her. I found stirring that particular emotion to have been masterfully accomplished.
Complementing this more visceral reaction are all the heady, metaphorical goings-on. The duality of the physical and the psychological is just one of many relationships to be found in this lit major’s dream. There’s the White Swan and the Black Swan, to start with. Then you have to wonder what’s going on with Nina and Lily, Lily who occasionally bears a striking resemblance to Nina herself. And what about Nina and her mother, a former dancer in her own right? Speaking of, Nina’s an adult, but lives with her mother in what looks like her childhood bedroom, complete with stuffed animals. Is she a girl, or a woman? Then there’s Nina and the long-in-the-tooth dancer Beth (Winona Ryder, another perfect fit). They begin to share a dressing room – is that all they share? Everywhere we turn there’s another unanswered question, and we’re hyperaware of them all because our adrenaline’s going and we’re doing nothing if not paying attention.
Black Swan made me feel and made me think, both to an exceptional degree. Beyond being a pretentious mind-bender, or a simple horror movie, we’ve got the best of both cases. A movie hasn’t demanded so much of me in a long time, and I say that with my highest praise.
In brief: Heavy lies the crown. Awesome, in every sense of the word.
4 stars/4 (A)