Black Swan - Darren Aronofsky

Black Swan, the latest film from director Darren Aronofsky, is an intense psychological journey. It is deeply entrenched in sexual repression and shame and its protagonist is driven over the edge when tasked with connecting, on any level, to her sensuality. With a captivating performance by Natalie Portman at its centre, Black Swan is a fascinating film on an intellectual level and an enthralling one on a viewing level.

Portman plays Nina Sayers, an emotionally and mentally fragile ballerina. She lives with her mother (Barbara Hershey), herself a former dancer, who keeps her in a perpetual state of childhood in order to maintain her control over her and live vicariously through her. Theirs is a relationship that rests on a razor’s edge, the long simmering tensions between them always threatening to explode. Nina struggles against her mother’s control, searching for some feeling of independence, no matter how minor. At one point she finds a piece of wood and uses it to prop her bedroom door shut, finally gaining some much-needed privacy. Yet, at the same time, she’s frightened and repelled by the intensity of the things she feels and experiences when she breaks free of her mother. The world is terrifying to her because she jumps into it after twenty years of childhood rather than being eased into it over time.

Nina dances for a company run by Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel). Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) has long reigned as the prima ballerina but she’s getting older and the company has been losing money, prompting Thomas to reassess her value. He decides to replace her – officially she’s said to be retiring, but her behaviour at the party in honour of her retirement belies the truth – he intends to debut his new star in a reimagining of the Tchaikovsky classic Swan Lake. Nina is picked to audition for the Swan Queen and though she perfectly captures the spirit of the White Swan, Thomas doubts her ability to effectively play the Black Swan. After a minor (and brief) display of fierce sensuality, Thomas decides to give her a chance but warns her that she has a lot of work to do in order to prove herself.

Nina’s work is made more difficult by the arrival of Lily (Mila Kunis), a new dancer whom Thomas praises for the passion of her dancing, even if she’s not as technically precise as Nina. Nina immediately feels threatened by and suspicious of Lily but, at the same time, cannot resist being drawn into her orbit. Lily becomes a double for her and through Lily she finds a way to express the sexuality she has long been repressing. This expression of sexuality, however, is too much for her to handle and her anxieties are articulated through bodily mutilation, violent fantasies and paranoid outbursts as she sinks deeper and deeper into madness.

On the surface, Black Swan is a story not unlike All About Eve; a backstage drama about the star and the new performer who becomes her confidante in order to usurp her. Beneath the surface, however, it is the story of a woman psychologically divided against herself. Physically Nina has developed into a woman but mentally and emotionally her development stalled in childhood, resulting in a battle within her between mind and body in which the mind has won a tentative but unstable victory. Black Swan is a story that is very much about the impossibility of denying one’s true nature (the “black swan” part of Nina is repressed for a time but, in the end, so completely overpowers her that she hallucinates that she’s physically becoming the black swan). It is significant, then, that Lily inspires the only positive sexual response Nina has during the course of the film. In its way, Black Swan can be read as a story of coming out and of the destructive power of internalized homophobia.

Aronofsky is not always the most subtle of filmmakers – there are moments in Black Swan when he seems to be taking great pains to ensure that the viewer will not miss the significance underlying a scene – but he maintains such a high level of tension throughout the film that the force of the narrative just rolls right over you, curtailing any objection you might have to being spoon fed the symbolism. The fragility of Nina’s mental state is established from the first but the film keeps building it up and building it up until finally arriving at the point of crescendo, when Nina unravels in an absolutely mesmerizing series of scenes that leave the viewer breathless.

Portman’s performance is one of both incredible openness and incredible control. Nina is a character who wears her emotions and anxieties on the surface – she does not have the guile necessary to mask her feelings – and goes through life extremely exposed. As a character she is coming apart and spinning towards the edge, but Portman’s performance never goes over that edge. She is surrounded by a terrific supporting cast, from Hershey as the clingy stage mother and Kunis as the possibly duplicitous understudy, to Cassel as the lecherous director and Ryder as the desperate fading star. The performances work together in perfect, chaotic harmony, elevating this film into a glorious work of art.

Watch a trailer for the movie here: