A Hitchcock-esque ballet

Director Darren Aronofsky provides a masterful account of the human psyche’s masochistic tendencies in a tale of the corruption of innocence, paranoia, and one hell of a psychotic breakdown. Black Swan is the story of sheltered ballerina Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), who has recently been handed the much-coveted lead role in Swan Lake. Quiet, innocent and dedicated; Sayers has the perfect qualities to represent the purity and grace of the White Swan, however, it is her portrayal of the erotic and passionate abandon of the character’s alter ego that presents the greatest barrier between Nina and success. It is no mean feat for a virginal teenager, who lives at home, and sleeps in a room that looks as if it has been decorated by a team of loved-up Care Bears, with a particularly strong penchant for pink.

She attempts this metamorphosis into the Black Swan under the mentorship of the show’s artistic director, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), who uses seduction and bullying in equal measures to draw Nina out of her shell. Throw a smothering, bitter mother (Barbara Hershey) and a sly seductress (Mila Kunis) intent on stealing her part into the mix, and all the ingredients are there for a monumental melt-down. And what a melt-down it is. Nina’s loss of grip on reality is marked by a series of hallucinatory, increasingly violent episodes that blur the boundaries between reality and the imaginary manifestations of Nina’s insecurities. The result is a frenetic, and completely absorbing film within a film; where the events on and off the stage tragically mirror one another as Nina attempts to become the titular Black Swan whilst maintaining her sanity.

Whilst you can sympathise with Nina, however, and appreciate the caustic environment that she exists in, this film does little to actually make the viewer like the character. She is distrustful, paranoid and it is hard to fight the feeling that she somehow has brought all this upon herself. This is my major problem with the film, as I find that narratives of this type work best when the audience feel strongly one way or the other about the lead character. The power of Aronofsky’s previous films (The Wrestler, Requiem for a Dream) relies on a real emotional connection with the characters; The Wrestler is mainly such a fantastic film because you geuinely care about Rorke’s persona. Whilst Sayers’ spiralling descent into psychosis is undoubtedly tragic and gripping, the lack of connection with the character creates more of an adrenaline-packed experience rather than an emotionally harrowing one. This is by no means a poor reflection of Portman’s acting ability, who delivers a fantastic performance that marks a departure from her usual roles as quirky, yet generally harmless heroines. Neither is this necessarily a wholly negative point as the film still works tremendously well – it is just a matter of personal preference.

One thing that must be said is that the film looks fantastic. Cinematographer, Matthew Libatique, creates an atmosphere that fits perfectly with the duality of the plot by switching between slow and graceful scenes, and scenes that move at nausea-inducing speed. The most surprising revelation was that the film created a completely unexpected appreciation of the ballet itself. A combination of the fluid camera work, and Portman’s discipline (she spent 6 months in gruelling training for the role) results in scenes that are quite simply beautiful to watch. Despite all the pirouettes and demi-pliés, however, Black Swan is, above all, a psychological thriller bordering on horror. While it may be accused of pushing the melodrama to the limit, it is definitely a couple of hours of fantastic (if a little stressful) entertainment that goes beyond anything that you would expect from a film based around ballet. It is dark, moody cinema at its best, and will keep you on the edge of your seat better than any slasher or gruesome horror flick could hope to achieve.