Now comes the turn of Black Swan to go under my rather rose tinted microscope, I was itching to see this and then it won a whole bunch of awards, many friends saw it and had mixed reviews (one friend is a prude though so her negativity was to be expected), so last night when I put the DVD in the player I had lowered my expectations.
The film is centred around ballerina Nina Sayers who has been with her present company for many years but relegated to the sidelines as the prima-ballerina Beth (played with acidity by Winona Ryder) took centre stage in all productions. Now with the 'retirement' of Beth the director Thomas (Vincent Cassel) has decided to strip down the most famous of all ballets Swan Lake and cast a new lead, eventually casting innocent Nina who is perfect for the fragile white swan but in her efforts to encapsulate the black swan and achieve perfection begins to lose her mind. Nina is faced with an overprotective mother, competitive fellow dancers, an egotistical director, and a new dancer who appears to embody the black swan played by Mila Kunis. As she struggles to achieve perfection Nina begins self-harming, seeing her image in the people around her, and to have wild hallucinations, culminating in a violent ending where you the audience are not sure what is truth or delusion any longer.
As with The King's Speech I believe the Oscars and BAFTA's got it spot on with their awards, Natalie Portman thoroughly deserves her Best Actress credit as it was a performance that involved not only being sweet innocent and fragile, but also violent, passionate, strung out on drugs, and of course a convincing a ballerina. I have heard ballerina's saying how they could tell which was Natalie and which was a real ballerina but I honestly could not, and any thoughts I had of trying to distinguish were lost in my captivation of the plot and with her acting. Natalie became Nina, and it is hard to not wonder if any true ballerina's have witnessed or suffered their own breakdown from the pressures of the business.
Mila Kunis did incredibly well as Lily, Nina's rival but also an attempted friend, she is an outsider coming in from the West Coast and enchanting Thomas the director with her natural way of dancing as opposed to Nina's precise and correct form. Kunis is of course known for That 70's Show and being the voice of Meg Griffin, this is the first time I have seen her in a serious and dramatic role where she can show her own abilities alongside Portman in the dancing arena. Both ladies have been heard to say it was so great to finish Black Swan purely so they could eat again, physically I winced as the rib cages showed through the skin, especially during one scene of physiotherapy for Nina.
Their director Thomas is played with aplomb by Cassel (Eastern Promises) as he struggles with turning Nina into his idea of a perfect dancer, but also displaying the arrogance and artistic temperament shown in many documentaries of any dance company. You cannot hate Thomas, and he isn't designed to be hated, in fact nobody is the 'enemy', but he isn't a likeable man as he uses sex to improve Nina's performance of the black swan. Thomas does provide the wisest advice to Nina though, saying that the only person in her way is herself.
And this is what the film is truly all about, that nothing is actually in Nina's way except her own boundaries she has imposed. Slowly, through the breaking down of her mentality, she removes some of these boundaries as when she throws out the soft toys that cover every inch of her too pink room, forcing maturity upon herself and removing her reliance on her overbearing mother who has kept Nina in cotton wool.
Darren Aronofsky is not a man who takes the easy route in film-making, his previous works include the horrific but beautiful Requiem For a Dream, 2008's critically acclaimed The Wrestler, and the utterly bizarre and confusing The Fountain which nevertheless made me weep like a child.
Black Swan is a more violent film than I was expecting, the graphic visuals are convincing, the scenes where Nina becomes the black swan made me grab a cushion, but it fits with Aronofsky's previous works. He is a director that does not deviate from his message to bring a happy Hollywood ending, and although the film may seem to be a crazy ride it is held together with firm hands guiding it through the tumultuous moods and spiralling of Nina's mind being unwound.
I thoroughly enjoyed this film, and though my face was probably a mask of horror at many points with the cushion close by just in case the visuals became a little too convincing, it is a beautifully made film with a convincing cast. The plot itself is convincing as there cannot be any profession out there, especially in the business of show, that a person has not become so overwhelmed that they have broken down in their efforts to achieve perfection. I can understand why the ballet world were, and still are, unconvinced by this film as to them it probably shows a negative side to their beautiful façade, however knowing the hard work it takes to become a ballerina would I hope make audiences want to see a real production of Swan Lake.
The film has only one negative for me and that is it does take for granted the audience's prior knowledge of the ballet world, the plot of swan lake is revealed almost halfway through and this has such a bearing on the unravelling of Nina that you feel a short synopsis of the ballet would have been helpful to those going in blind so to speak. Luckily I have seen the ballet, and I love going to see any production because ballerina's are the most beautiful kinds of athletes, who wants to see an overpaid fop nudge a football on a patch of grass when you can see a woman perform thirty two pirouettes without stopping and then carry on dancing with her partner?
I recommend this film to those open to seeing a girl come apart at the seams, a world of competition and beauty, and Portman in one of her greatest performances to date.
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