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I don’t really care for Darren Aronofsky. There, I said it. In fact, I’ve only ever truly liked one of his films (The Wrestler) and I don’t really credit him with my enjoyment of the film as much as I credit Mickey Rourke.
What a difference a few years can make. Black Swan is not only a good movie, it’s a great one, and really dug into me unlike any movie this year. It is a hard film to watch, but also a hard film to look away from. This is a film that shows the utter horror that can occur when we find ourselves filled with paranoia and obsession. Being perfect has a huge price, and Black Swan documents this throughout its running time.
The film is about Nina, a ballerina in a New York ballet company that is about to open their season with a wild imagining of Swan Lake where the two leads, the White Swan and the Black Swan, will be portrayed by the same dancer. Nina desperately wants the role, but cannot show the emotion needed to portray the wild and seductive Black Swan. When she actively petitions for the roles she ends up convincing the director that she might have the spark, so he bets everything on her, and so begins her journey to discover the inner darkness that is the Black Swan.
To say much else would ruin the film, I think, so I won’t, but this film really sticks to the ribs like a good meal, and provides lots to think about as one leaves the theater, and this goes both for the plot as well as the techniques used to craft the film itself. This film is a very well put together film that really shows some brilliant craftsmanship from all involved. From the limited locations that make the film feel almost claustrophobic to the camerawork that never stops, dancing along with the characters that give the film a sense of fluid motion, the filmmakers used every asset available to make this movie a feast for the senses and for the mind.
Darren uses this film as a chance to stretch his wings and allow for some clever homage to classical filmmakers like Argento and Polanski, while giving the film his own unique vision. The film works almost as a companion piece to The Wrestler in the sense that Nina is as desperate as Randy to move her career further, and like Randy, she goes to dangerous lengths to make sure it happens. Darren uses this to show the dangers of obsession, and, as I said earlier, the price one pays for perfection. Perfection seems to be a bit of a running theme in his movies, and it really comes full circle here with the story of Nina and her rise to being the Swan Queen.
This film is all about performance, and it’s cast gives some great ones. Natalie Portman gets a lot of shit for some reason, and I think she’s a fine actress, but this really allowed her to shine. She really personifies the shy, timid creature that Nina is at the beginning, and so its not hard to believe her in the role, which makes her transition over the course of the film into a much darker persona that much more powerful. She really nails this, and one shot of her towards the end of the film is simply terrifying.
The supporting cast is great as well. Mila Kunis brings a lot to her role as Lilly, a mysterious girl who joins the company at the start of the film. One of her best assets in the film is her likability. Mila has always been likeable (even as the distinctly annoying Jackie on That 70’s Show) and she uses it to wonderful effect her to work her way into Nina’s life and in so doing, the emotions of the audience. She is also very sensual, which lends itself very well to one of the film’s most talked about sequences. Vincent Cassel was great as the fairly sleezy director of the company who pushes Nina towards her eventual fate, not caring what the end result is as long as he gets his “art”, and Winona Ryder shows up briefly as the former lead dancer of the company. Her role isn’t really that big in the film, except that she provides a window for Nina to see what she might eventually become, and Winona does a fine job with what she is given.
One performance that isn’t getting as much talk as I think it should is Barbra Hershey as Nina’s mother. Good Lord, she is wonderful. Her character is not a likable character, and it’s done that way on purpose, but she brings such realness to the character that it’s hard to dislike her, even when the film leads you to. One scene in particular had me squirming because of how her and Natalie were interacting. It’s areally powerful performance to match Natalie’s electric take on Nina.
One of the other assets the film has it it’s score and it’s soundtrack, which is crafted by Darren’s frequent collaborator Clint Mansell. He does a wonderful job here to take the existing score to Black Swan and transform it into something dark and twisted to mirror Nina’s journey, and sometimes it’s very subtle, and other times it’s right in your face, but it’s a wonderful trick to work that score into our brains so that when the finale comes, the big night, we associate that music more with Nina than anything else.
As I said, this is a film that has just stuck with me, and I continue to think about it now, even after writing this much about it. Darren Aronofsky has crafted one of the year’s best films, a film that is at once stunningly beautiful, absolutely terrifying, and ultimately heartbreaking, and I loved every second of it.
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