Darren Aronofsky, more than any other director working today, seems utterly fascinated by the self-destructive nature within people. Indeed, there is perhaps no more interesting aspect of human nature than one's willingness to self inflict pain and turmoil in the pursuit of personal happiness. Be it drug use in Requiem for a Dream, wrestling in The Wrestler, and now dancing in Black Swan, there is always a dangerous balance between transcendent joy and complete physical and mental destruction for his characters. As such, he is often able to make us feel a very deep and profound connection to his characters, and his films have resulted in some of the great screen performances of the last decade. Natalie Portman joins that list with Black Swan, a film that demands more of her than any film she has ever done, but demonstrates more potential from her than one might ever have expected.Portman plays Nina, a ballerina of indistinguishable age. Nina lives with her mother, speaks with a childlike voice, and has no real grasp of the world around her. Sheltered her whole life by her mother, she simply doesn't have the confidence and darkness that is required if she wishes to play the dual leads of both the White and Black Swans in the upcoming performance of Swan Lake. Yet the director sees something in her and plucks her from her obscurity, forcing her to confront her fears, desires, and inner turmoil. Played by Vincent Cassel, Thomas the director is an uneasy balance between artistic genius and sleazy manipulator. There is never a clear sense of whether he is trying to seduce Nina, or if he is really trying to mold her into a more confident artist. Also tearing Nina apart is the new dancer in the troupe, Lily (Mila Kunis). It's hard to tell if Lily idolizes Nina or wants to destroy her, and Kunis finds the perfect balance between the two with her performance.
Portman is an actress who is known for her likable, intelligent persona. Here, like Nina, she is forced to stretch beyond her limits, to try and encompass both her nice girl persona and something far more powerful and sinister. It is brilliant casting, and Portman makes every beat work. For much of the film, Nina feels like something Natalie Portman would normally play, there isn't much barrier between actress and role (aside from increasing the childishness). But when she makes her metamorphosis into a Black Swan, she becomes unrecognizable. Confidant, strong willed, and frankly frightening, Portman is suddenly like you have never seen her. This is the kind of rare performance where an actress is able to tap into her heretofore unseen potential and do something you never would have expected. It will certainly be the role that defines Portman's career, and hopefully it opens up a whole new door for her.
Is there a more confidant director working today than Darren Aronofksy? With every film he aims for greatness and achieves it. His films are both of a piece and radically different. He gets the strongest performances he can out of his actors, utilizes music like no other, and can create a visual representation of every character's mind with ease. In Black Swan he creates a world of a nightmare, were the seeming simplicity of Nina's world is deliberately torn down as she struggles with her art. The way he uses his camera to film the dancing is thrilling and intimate, and the use of color is unusual to say the least. Evert set and costume is either black or white, except for Nina's very colorful room. As Nina grows as an artist, the color of her world begins to drain, melting into the blacks and whites found everywhere else. And is there a more wonderful pairing of director and composer right now than Aronofsky and Clint Mansell? Mansell's score here is an overwhelming recreation of Swan Lake, filling the film in an operatic way. It is chilling and powerful in the exact way this story should be.
Black Swan lures you in with its examination of the world of dancing, before pulling the rug out from under you as Nina's mind deteriorates. Much like he did with The Wrestler, you get a great behind the curtain look at what goes into the art of dancing. I have no real knowledge of dancing, but Aronofsky and Portman were able to make me see the difference between competent dancing and transcendent dancing. Nina is a very strong dancer, but she is mechanical. You can see that she simply cannot lose herself in her art, there is always a barrier of thought there. But as she grows into herself, the dancing become more fluid, more honest. The final sequence of the film, in which we see her finally perform Swan Lake, is one of the great scenes of 2010. The dancing really is beautiful, and in combination with everything else going on, it becomes the kind of transcendent experience that Nina has been looking for her whole life.
This is certainly one of the stranger films of the year. The literal and the imaginary intertwine with little explanation as to which is which. Aronofksy is able to combine all the elements of his film into a mind trip that is both sobering and uplifting. It's a film that requires some patience from its audience, but it grows into a thing of unexpected beauty by the end. There is honestly so much going on here that I am unable to really unpack all my feelings on it after one viewing. To me, there are few rewards of cinema greater than when a film defies an easy explanation, that it demands to be seen over and over in order to discover new things. Such is the case with Black Swan, a film I will certainly be revisiting over the years with new interpretations each time.
