Before I sat down to watch this I had a range of superlatives swimming around my head such as 'amazing' 'perfect' and 'the best film I've seen' etc. Despite this, these words soon evaporated as I was totally lost in the world presented on screen. However, it's been 4 days since I saw this and those early remarks seem fully justified despite my earlier trepidation.
The only other Aronofsky film I've seen was Requiem for a Dream and that was fantastic so I was hoping for more of the same and my I got more than I bargained for.
I do own the Wrestler but I haven't got around to watching it just yet. I'd like to also see some of his earlier works such as Pi. My point being that going into this I wasn't really sure what to expect. I went into it with high hopes as both this film and The Wrestler in particular were highly revered. It didn't come as a shock to me to find this film as interesting and exciting as it was as I've always had a soft spot for the darker side to films. It certainly took me through a range of emotions.
I think the film itself is hard to place, it wasn't a horror film but at the same time it was very squeamish and parts of it felt terrifying and on this level it can easily be compared to some of the best horror. I’d liken it to The Exorcist oddly enough in that it documents a persons complete transformation from good to evil, from light to dark. It just wasn't expected from a film which was billed as a 'film about ballet'. It was a film of surprises and more often than not it had the capability to throw you around as though you were locked in a never ending bouncy castle.
Whether it was the oft-repeated device of the mother (Barbara Hershey) cutting the fingernails of Nina (Natalie Portman), with tense music, quick editing and edgey close-ups, or the sight of the latest grotesque ballet injury, Black Swan had me wincing more than I care to recall.
It clearly owes much to The Red Shoes, with some shots directly borrowed, such as the first person view as Nina spins around in rehersal. It also has some similar themes, such as the obsessive and destructive relationship between Nina and her director (Vincent Cassel). Furthermore, it is also essentially an adaptation of Swan Lake – the ballet Portman’s character is set to perform within the film, but with which her own life (or psyche) becomes linked, in a frenetic psychological assualt as dreams and hallucinations are confused with reality. Here Black Swan blurs the line between dream and reality effortlessly.
Near the film’s start, Cassel’s Thomas tells his dancers they are to stage Swan Lake: “it’s been done to death, I know, but not like this. We’re going to strip it down and make it visceral and real”, and this is basically Aronofsky’s brief for Black Swan as a movie.
Emphasis is placed on Portman’s foot muscles as she stands on her toes [forgive my gross lack of ballet knowledge!] and on the bloody breaking of her toenails as she pushes her body to its limit in search of perfection. It uses the star persona to enrich the story whilst also reflecting on certain issues such as fear of aging and of being less than you once were.
I thought Winona Ryder was under used here but she has still as magnetism on screen and I would have liked to have seen more of her. She played the former ballet queen and she played the role perfectly; an excellent piece of casting. Portman is the upstart here, perhaps the new Winona Ryder? On a side note, I recently watched Girl, Interrupted and I forgot just how great she is in that. I do hope that we see more of Ryder in future releases, a very under rated actress in my view.
But it is Natalie Portman really shines here. “It’s a hard fucking job to do both”, Thomas says of the challenge involved in playing both the white and black swan in his ballet. But it is a challenge Portman rises to in her portrayal of Nina. Her Oscar nomination is no surprise to me at all and is fully justified especially her shear physical commitment to the role as well as her fragile beauty concealing hidden grit and her inner darkness. She completely nails it. It is by far one of the best individual performances I have seen in recent years and I’d challenge anyone to tell me otherwise.
The aforementioned Cassel, is funny, charismatic and sleezy in his role, convincing as an unorthodox artistc genius. Then there is Mila Kunis’ ambitious, seductive (and possibly dangerous) Lilly, and with her the psycho-sexual aspect of the film’s exploration of the id. Black Swan has explicit scenes and it contains unabashed expressions of raw sexuality through it but it is never once vulgar or exploitative and for this it should be applauded because it could have easily done the reverse.
I’ve yet to mention the technical aspect to the film and this could be a whole new review itself. The virtuosity of the camera work puts you in the dances which I’ve not seen done before and it’s use of colour is at first subtle then more obvious as the character seems to change right before our eyes. You can see this from the clothes they wear down to the very eye makeup they display. All this adds up to serve the drama perfectly and it is emotionally intense. Visually and narratively it is a complete film experience always driving to provoke mood and feeling. It is as cinema should be, at its most alive and in other hands it could be seen as pretentious but it never was. There are no silly sub-plots and everything is where it should be ending at the precise moment.
Overall, Black Swan is a towering achievement both cinematically and purely for an emotional ride which I won’t forget in a hurry, I get a fuzzy feeling at the back of my head when recalling it, even now nearly five days later. And how often can you say that?
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