Black Swan (2010)

Rating: [R]

(Director) Darren Aronofsky

(Writer) Mark Heyman

(Producer) Jon Avnet

(Distributor) Fox Searchlight Pictures

Darren Aronofsky is no stranger to the profound and undeniably queer aspects of the human psyche. Anybody who has seen his reincarnation themed tale of loss and redemption, "The Fountain", or the strung out "Requiem for a Dream", can easily make this claim. I seem to be personally drawn to these directors, the ones who come off as self described slaves of vague and pretentious expression. Maybe because I like to believe that their films mirror the intense, wayward outlooks they have on people and life itself. The idea fascinates me, to think that there are fellow humans out there who think so differently than the rest of us and on some level, may even be considered mentally unstable. Yet they walk amongst us and direct our Friday night movies. Kubrick, Lynch, Aronofsky, Miike, Trier...the list goes on. These people reach out their hands, take ours and ask us to plunge head first towards recognizing our own inner demons. "Black Swan" is about just that...somebody whose desire to achieve is fueled by their own self hatred. A combination that leads to personal destruction.

Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is a young, timid, and emotionally withdrawn professional ballerina who lives with her mother Erica Sayers (Barbara Hershey) in New York City. From the very beginning it becomes apparent that Nina lives in an unstable environment. Due to a mother who seems to have made the lifelong attempt to live through her child, Nina has developed a ritual of self mutilation via the violent scratching of her skin during times of emotional turmoil and self doubt. Unfortunately stress rears its ugly head as the new ballet season rolls around and chief director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) visits a dancing practice to choose a replacement for prima ballerina Beth Maclntyre's (Winona Ryder) starring roll in his upcoming re imagining of "Swan Lake". Out twenty or so girls, Leroy chooses a small handful and Nina is lucky enough to be one of the chosen. Though immediately after, a bad audition where Leroy claims "you have shown me your white swan but I do not see a black swan anywhere in there", begins a never ending downward spiral of Nina's mental state.

Intense. That would be the easiest way to describe the 108 minute journey through the tortured mind of Nina Sayers. Aronofsky made damn sure that the audience would be experiencing every little unstable thought or complex emotion our self loathing main character was going through. An excellent job was done at capturing that intense feeling of needing to succeed even if it meant destroying yourself in the process. Somehow this came across so well that within the first twenty minutes I felt the sudden hiccuping of tears because I felt so pressured. Just this sensation of pressure, anxiety and the feeling that you're completely alone in the ordeal. Natalie Portman has never been one of my favorite actors and after her role in the Star Wars prequels I tried to avoid her atrocity as often as I could. In "Black Swan", her emotions looked so raw that its simply baffling to witness. You know how there's often times where an actor will cry in a film and you can't help but give a little smirk because it comes off as entirely forced? Well I swear Aronofsky was standing behind the camera, threatening to shoot her, because every emotionally weary moment seemed genuine. Every tear, every cry, every reaction to her delusions felt real. It was a lot to take in and sometimes really hard to endure.

The main focus of the film from the very beginning is Nina's internal development into the "black swan". Leroy consistently tries to push her into a darker direction via sexual temptation but nothing seems to be able to crack Nina's hard shell. This problem becomes easily worked around because very early into the movie we are introduced to Lily (Mila Kunis), a replacement dancer that has been flown in from San Fransisco. From the get go its fairly obvious that Lily is Nina's metaphorical "black swan". Nina is fragile, innocent, sheltered, anxious and extremely timid. Lily is vicious, spunky, rough and well....she's from San Fransisco. Aronofsky throws this extremely "subtle" hint at us by having Lily wear black throughout the entirety of the film and Nina wear.....well, what's the opposite of black? The two girls end up developing a sort of "let me take you on a trip to the wild side" relationship. Lily uses her carefree and live-life-however charm to lure Nina into some pretty wild and very new "situations". If you feel uncomfortable watching lesbian sex scenes, lots of crotch groping, and a persistent theme of orgasmic female lust...might want to pass on this film (or be less of a Nina).

About a third into the story, things take a turn for the losing-itself and the film seems to get lost for a little bit. Which is too bad because its during this time that Nina is making the haunting dive into black swan territory. So its kind of disheartening to see things get pretty silly. Luckily the climax is heart wrenching, depressing and robs you of all positive emotions. So enjoy those "bad acting/writing" laughs while they're available.

There's some pretty shoddy CGI every now and then that will either have you feeling squeamish due to the subject matter or slightly rolling your eyes because you saw how beautifully done the CGI was in "The Fountain" so you're going "The hell Darren?!" Honestly though, the bad effects only become an after thought because during the actual viewing you are far too busy getting emotionally beaten down with sorrow to even notice. There is one CGI'd scene at the end that left me breathless. Not because the effects were good but because it builds up to this giant explosion of emotion. Like heavily exasperating after finding out you aced the test that was getting you into a top notch university.

"Black Swan" is just excellent. The directing is actually pretty groundbreaking, in my opinion and I'm not trying to over-exaggerate. The entire feeling of the film portrays Nina's emotions. The whole thing. Not once do you ever get to breathe and that's because she never gets to breathe either. The cinematography is stunning. The soundtrack is gold to fans of classical ballet scores. The acting makes me want to slam my head into a wall because now I'll be curious as to the future career of both Portman and Kunis, actresses whom I've never liked in the past (that means the acting was superb). Everything was good except for those thirty minutes or so in the later half of the film but its easily excusable because the emotional ride was mind blowing.