Black Swan

One of the most hyped films for the leadup to the 2010 Oscars at the moment would have to be Black Swan, a film about ballet by Darren Aranofsky that just snuck up out of nowhere and took the world by surprise. Even with all this hype I can't say that I had particularly big expectations for it. But having just sat through it I've been left gobsmacked and I can't help but think that for once the hype is completely deserved. Think back to Aranofsky's previous film, the superb drama The Wrestler, and take that dramatic quality and perfect piece of lead casting. Mix it with something approaching a psychological horror film and you might have a vague idea of what kind of film Black Swan is. It's a strong contender for film of the year, and proves once again that you don't have to look very far past the franchises and remakes to still find high quality original filmmaking in America.

Nina (Natalie Portman) is a naive, coddled ballet dancer with ambitions of stardom. When a casting call goes out for a new production of the ballet Swan Lake she convinces the director, Thomas (Vincent Cassel), to take her on despite her apparent inability to embody the darker aspects of the performance. The lead in Swan Lake requires someone who can play both the innocent, vulnerable white swan and the darkly passionate and sexualised black swan. Nina makes a great white swan but Thomas has to really push her (physically, psychologically and sexually) if she is to capture the essence of the black swan. This pressure becomes nearly insurmountable when a possible rivalry emerges between herself and another dancer, Lily (Mila Kunis), who is as much a natural black swan as Nina is a natural white one. Then there's also Nina's cloying mother Erica (Barbara Hershey), a failed ballerina who will do anything to remain in control over her daughter, and Beth McIntyre (Winona Ryder), an ageing ballerina that Nina idolises and is now replacing.

Right from the opening dream sequence there's a juxtaposition between the delicateness of ballet and the ominously sinister that gives this film it's unique tone. Here the ambiguous nature of film allows for an entirely open-ended exploration of psychology that keeps the viewer guessing right up until the magnificent climax. We glimpse fractions of Nina's relationship with her mother throughout the film but are never given a complete picture... her mother never affords her any privacy, but quite what this means to Nina isn't made very clear until a lot further on in the film. Whether Nina has always had a problem with this or whether it's a new development isn't completely clear either, but this is part of the film's genius and the strength of film as a medium in general.

Nina is a repressed woman without an outlet - her possible glory in Swan Lake depends on her finding this outlet but at what price will this glory come? To nail the role she needs to lose herself in it, to find a sense of duality and embrace her dark side, but it's a path that might also destroy her. As a commentary on the relationship between madness and great art it comes across as thoroughly genuine and uncliched. Ballet as an art form is one where the artists burn so brightly for such a relatively short period of time, their lithe bodies at the mercy of age and other physical factors. Nina's story, and the story of Swan Lake itself, are neat allegories for this.

Aranofsky uses a few interesting tricks to pull the viewer into Nina's world. There's a reflection motif that gives the duality theme a visual representation, and there's also disturbing recurrent images of Nina's body breaking down (mysterious scratch marks on Nina's back, her skin peeling away on her finger, a stubbed toe, etc) that suggests both self-abuse and transformation. The character of Thomas is interesting too, treading a fine line between casting-couch sleaze and someone who genuinely wants to free Nina's sexuality up for the good of her performance. We don't immediately know if it's a game for his own gratification or if it's a gambit to create great art - once again, the ambiguous nature of this is part of why I love film so much. Portman's complete embodiment of Nina is another reason why this film works so incredibly well. It's a staggering multi-faceted performance that's both at once engimatic and vulnerable, you believe that the pressure she feels is completely real. It must've been very physically and emotionally exhausting for Portman, it's certainly a million miles away from her two-dimensional acting in the Star Wars and in Black Swan she gives the performance of a career.

I also liked this film a lot for making ballet accessible to schlubs like me. Ballet just isn't something I've ever had an interest in, and I think you'd be hard pressed to actually make me want watch it but this film achieves just that. It adds intriguing modernist dimensions to a classic piece of ballet... it gives the viewer a way in to what can be a daunting piece of high culture, and I think making high culture accessible is one of the finest achievements a director can aspire to. I'm not sure if that was ever Aranofsky's intention but it's definitely a byproduct of this film, and the Swan Lake performance at the end uses all the film's elements to justify the most cinematic yet traditional interpretation of the ballet possible. It might not sound like the most exciting premise for a movie but between Aranofsky's command of the visual and Portman's amazing performance it's an incredible journey that is every bit as perfect as the ideal that Nina chases throughout the film. You should watch it without any real expectations, just let it take you on a ride.

DIRECTOR: Darren Aronofsky
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Mark Heyman, Andre Heinz and John J. McLaughlin.
KEY ACTORS: Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder

RELATED TEXTS:
- Swan Lake, probably the most famous ballet opus of all time.
- A Japanese feature-length anime film (also titled Swan Lake) was produced in 1981.
- An American animated film, The Swan Princess, was produced in 1994, and followed by two direct-to-video sequels: The Swan Princess II: Escape from Castle Mountain and The Swan Princess: The Mystery of the Enchanted Kingdom.
- Aronofsky's previous film, The Wrestler, is a thematic companion piece to Black Swan. Early drafts of The Wrestler even concerned a love affair between a wrestler and a ballerina. As the final films stand, both concern the destructive use of the body for the sake of art - one for low culture and one for high culture.
- Powell and Pressburger's 1948 film The Red Shoes brought ballet to the big screen using similar metatextual techniques.
- Comparisons have also been drawn between Black Swan and the Roman Polanski films The Tenant, Rosemary's Baby and Repulsion.

AWARDS
At the time of writing, Portman has been nominated for, or won, six Best Actress awards - including the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild and Independent Spirit Awards. Mila Kunis has been nominated for three Best Supporting Actress awards.

The film has also been nominated for Best Drama and Best Director Golden Globes.