Film Review: Black Swan

Without a doubt, I have anticipated no other film these past three months more than Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. I approached this film as a complete stranger would, having a very vague idea of what I was in for. Aronofsky has done spectacular portraits of tragically fractured characters, such as his work with Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. It seemed like a stretch to suddenly head into the world of ballet, and even more of a stretch to frame it as a psychological thriller. Then the next 100 minutes of my life had spun my head three ways round, constricting my lungs in the process, before finally letting me breathe.

Black Swan is about Nina Sayers, a dedicated dancer in a famous ballet company. Her life is practically dominated by her overbearing mother, who clearly hasn't given her any room to have a life of her own. When she is given the challenging role of the Swan Queen in the company's latest performance of Swan Lake, her mind starts playing terrifying tricks on her in order to cope with the stressful situation. The harsh and seductive ballet instructor Thomas, her previously mentioned chaotic mother, and a free-spirited new dancer in the company who threatens Nina's status in the company make her situation all the more frustrating.

Aronofsky has done some fantastic directorial work in the past, but never as detailed as he has achieved here. In terms of production, there's absolutely no flaw to be had here. Each shot, set, and sound is brimming with intense detail. The result is a film that takes what would be ordinary actions in our daily lives, and makes them feel crude and overly sensual to the fragile and sensitive Nina. The real world that we deal with every day feels so assaulting to her because of how she has been brought up. Her mental deterioration is more to blame on her mother than herself.

I could go on about the several disturbing qualities that Aronofsky and his team has worked to infuse into this film, but the main attraction is Natalie Portman's performance. I've been more than a little hesitant to put her as the frontrunner in the Best Actress race, but only because I loved Annette Bening so much in The Kids Are All Right. That being, Portman has much more screen time to work her magic on the audience. There's not a single scene in this film without Natalie in it, and she embodies all the different kinds of human emotion. Nina's feelings are very close to the surface, and everything that she's feeling is right there on her face.

Portman embodies the spirit of Nina Sayers, immaculate and beautiful outwardly, but with a dark edge being repressed below the surface. As usual, the worst consequences come out of the best intentions. Portman fully deserves to win the Oscar for her work here, because nobody must've trained as extensively as she did. She's obviously not the only performance at work here, with Vincent Cassel being one of the understated charms of this film. His representation of Thomas is not as a prick, but as a skilled director who uses sexual stimuli to get to the core of each character. Mila Kunis continues to leave behind her days on That 70s Show, with this being her most challenging role to date. It's still a rather light and fun role, because that's the perfect contrast to what Nina is.

If my thoughts on the film aren't quite as settled as they should be, it's because a lot of what could be said about the film has already been said. It will literally take your breathe away and withhold it from you for what feels like ages. As Nina takes the plunge into insanity, you will be gasping for control. The highest praise I can give Black Swan is that it registers a response from the audience that no other film has achieved this year.

A