Black Swan (2010)

There are a lot of opinions about this movie, it sits in an area of “love it or hate it”, which for the life of me I do not understand. I am quite literally floored that the movie is deemed so inaccessible, I state this fully in the understanding that there are some people, casual viewers, who do not appreciate horrors, thrillers and the weird for whom this reaction is understandable - you are hereby excused! But it’s the naysayers who are movie buffs, critics and aficionado’s, those who are fans of the aforementioned genre’s that have me confused in their lack of appreciation for this work. From the moment I saw the 1st trailer of this film I was intrigued, the tone hearkening to everything I love about movies, and it never failed me, delivering what it promised on every level.

The story is a loose adaptation and retelling of the ballet at the center of its plot. We meet Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) a ballerina who covets the principal role in "Swan Lake". The interesting fact about Swan Lake is that the principal role is one of duality, as the ballerina must perform not only the role of the graceful and beautiful, cursed white swan Princess Odette, she must also embody and perform the role of Odette’s evil twin Odile, the Black Swan. Odile is the opposite of Odette in every way and the task of the dancer who lands the roles is to communicate this distinction through the dance. Where perfectionist Nina embodies the role of the delicate White Swan, she slowly loses her mind as she struggles to capture the wanton abandon required for the performance of the Black Swan, abandon that is embodied in the passionate and fiery personality of Lily (Mila Kunis), the new addition to the company.

Seductively beautiful and disturbingly intense, Black Swan captures an emotional tone and has a plot, storyline and performances that are riveting and keep you guessing until it’s very last breath. While balancing on the cusp between horror and psychological thriller, it successfully hearkens back to the psychological aspects of horror classics from the 70’s like Rosemary’s Baby and Carrie (two of my personal favorite movies of all time), while delivering a vision all it’s own. It’s dark and sinister elements brilliantly juxtaposed against the beauty and grace of the ballet world that is its stage.

The movie was somewhat of a passion project for brilliant director Darren Aronofsky, who originally conceived a movie about two individuals from the extremities of performance art, a wrestler (the lowest form) and a ballerina (the highest), who fall in love. The project was ultimately split into two separate movies due to a feeling that there was too much for one movie, and these are Black Swan and The Wrestler, both of which have received critical acclaim. Darren Aronofsky is no stranger to making movies steeped in provocative subject matter, contrasted against excellent use of stylistic tools at a director’s disposal, there’s the haunting Requiem for a dream, the otherworldly The Fountain and the upcoming Noah. For Black Swan, Aronofsky’s greatest tool at his disposal apart from Tchaikovski’s sweeping music, the concept of the doppelganger and the Ballet world, is his cast, with Natalie Portman in the lead.

Natalie Portman is brilliant in her awards season dominating, Oscar winning performance, conquering a role as challenging as the role her character is trying to conquer. What a performance, this is to Natalie Portman what Hannibal Lecter was to Anthony Hopkins and what Aileen Wuornos was to Charlize Theron, an investment that paid off big time. To say that this was also a passion project for the actress who first graced our screens at the age of 10 in the brilliant Leon aka The Professional would be an understatement, reportedly she not only trained for a year as a dancer to prepare for the role, but paid for the the training out of her own pocket until the film found investors. She sustained injuries like a dislocated rib while performing a lift, and sacrificed her trailer due to budgetary restraints so that a medic could be employed on set to look after the performers. In terms of her performance, the transformation that occurs in a number of aspects in astounding, there’s Natalie Portman absolutely commanding the screen as an acting force to be reckoned with, there’s her character struggling with stress, desire and psychosis, there’s the dancer’s duality executed within the on stage piece, and it is a role so varied and demanding of a large sweep and scope of emotions that only a great actress could pull it off. I am tempted to say that there is also Portman’s transformation into a dancer (and it is there) but there was some controversy in this regard when her body and dance double, Sarah lane, made a public statement claiming that the film's producers asked her not to conduct interviews until after the awards season so that Portman would receive most of the dancing credibility. Let’s just say that there was a substantial amount of airtime given to this accusation and the defense thereof, and so I will stay away from it and state that even with the body double (and the assmuption that it is mostly her dance work on screen, which it is not), Natalie Portman’s performance over and above the moments of dancing is still exceptionally worthy of all the praise she received.

But just like a ballet company the primary dancer must have a supporting cast and Natalie is definitely not alone in bringing magic to the screen. One of the greatest injustices of the awards season was Mila Kunis being snubbed of an Oscar nomination, she is electrifyingly sensuous in the role of Lily, a role she was afforded by the recommendation of Portman, a friend, to Aronofsky. With a bit of a casual background in balelt, and after practicing religiously with a ballet instructor for three months Mila Kunis learned how to dance en pointe. She is the perfect Yang to the Ying in Nina, bringing a vitality to her character that could only inspire jealousy in her unofficial rival, a rivalry that extended behind the scenes as aronofsky brilliantly and subversively pitted the the two actresses against each other on set.

Also of note is the presence of Winona Ryder, I loves Winona, I misses Winona, shoplifting record is dead and buried please please please can her career arise out of the ashes? Winona Ryder is cast in the role of Beth MacIntyre, the former principle ballerina forced into retirement and to be replaced, and she is excellent in the bit of screen time afforded. Also brilliant is Barbara Hershey in the role of Nina’s mother, a former ballerina who lives only to have her daughter succeed. It is an important and brilliant piece of casting as the role of Nina’s mother is integral to the character development of Nina, she is the Piper Laurie to Natalie Portman’s Sissy Spacek - I leave it to you to figure that one out. The final piece of make it or break it casting is that of Vincent Cassel who plays the role of Thomas Leroy the director of the production, he based his performance against that of the personality of real New york City Ballet co-founder George Balanchine who was “a control freak, a true artist using sexuality to direct his dancers”.

Like I kinda said before, Black Swan is a piece best suited to people who appreciate movie as art, it is not for that old couple who left half way through the screening the first time I watched it. It is twisted, highly sexualised and hauntingly stunning, and harkens back to the kind of psychologically subversive movies that just don’t get made enough anymore.

So Black Swan is the first movie watched for this blog from the movie selection of 2011, and it's quite fitting as it is most probably my favourite (of the few Oscar one's I've seen, and most probably in general, I love this movie that much). Black Swan is the 44th Academy Award nominated movie watched for this blog.

nuff said...