IR: Black Swan

Black Swan is a damn good film, marred though it was by an audience who giggled and chatted though it like the scum I suspect all general public to be. A disturbing scene in which Natalie Portman's character, Nina, braves some experimental masturbation to further her career, is apparently lost on all the mindless f*cks whose brains just went “Ooooh sex! That's naaauuuuuggghty!” The fact that this is done tastefully and points to a dark change in her character apparently counts for nothing.

NOT AMUSED.

We watched Black Swan from digital and right up against the screen (it was packed), so unfortunately the image quality was grainy. However, the shots were still beautiful (as far as I can tell) and the subject matter being what it was helped too I'm sure. The dancing is amazingly professional, being done as it is by an actress, not a ballerina who has trained since birth like real ones have to. Either they are very swish with the body doubles or Natalie P and girl from That 70s Show actually managed to get on point (on their tippy toes) which is a pretty advanced thing and usually takes years to achieve. Unless you're a basilik.

Pictured: A digitally enhanced Natalie Portman.

The story itself is pretty cool and things get very trippy and confused (and, unfortunately, gruesome) as the plot progresses, and we become increasingly unsure of what is real. Nina is opened to a new world in her task to learn to dance the Black Swan, a role she has hitherto been too innocent for. This is a chilling coming-of-age tale, and I highly recommend seeing it!

5 stars.

Black Swan is a film into which a lot of thought has been poured.
I could analyse it for pages and not plumb the depths.
Naturally I was aware of it since it was talked about for months, tipped at the Oscars and directed by Darren Aronofsky, whose film The Fountain holds to this day the singular honour of having a sex scene I actually find sexy.

Despite not being able to move without seeing some kind of behind the scenes press about Black Swan, it did surprise me. I was expecting a straight forward arthouse melodrama. And indeed Black Swan is an arthouse melodrama, but it is in no way straight forward.

The kindest way to put it is that it is a film with a rich heritage. The cruelest would be that it is unoriginal. However the reality is somewhere in between. The closest I could get to give you a real impression of what its like is Jacob's Ladder with ballet instead of Vietnam. Or a feature long episode of the Twilight Zone produced by Merchant Ivory. If that sounds crazy, its just crazy enough to work.

Miss Kenton...it can never be. Please pass me another muffin.

It borrows from a dozen other works as well...I noticed a strong resemblance to Perfect Blue (the Satoshi Kon animation), Cat People, Roman Polanski's Repulsion, a whole bunch of body horrors and the raft of identity crisis films of the 90s of which Fight Club is the most well known.
I am not bashing this. I think it great to have so many reference, and I even noticed a few nods to Pi, Aronofsky's first feature, but anyone who calls this film original doesn't know an awful lot about cinema.


However maybe I should stop being a snob and remember that for some people cinema is entertainment, not life. It was certainly entertainment for the sack-headed goons we were forced to share a packed cinema with, who giggled along merrily at parts which would have made a more sensitive audience draw in breath. Seriously if you are reading this and you laughed, I would happily punch you in the throat.
Anyway...

To set the record straight about the hype, its mostly true...the performances are really great from every corner...the actors ham it up a bit but that is right for the piece and the setting. And if nothing else it proves once and for all how terribly, criminally badly Ms Natalie of the Portman Clan was misused in the Star Wars prequals. The lighting is great and creepy, the camera gives a real sense, perhaps one of the best I've seen, of being on stage. The dancing is completely real and not for a second did I doubt how much effort every one of the cast had put into it.
There are problems...some of the metaphors are a bit heavy handed (oh look, Natalie Portman's house is filled with soft toys. And one of them is...A BLACK SWAN!

Pictured: A digitially enhanced Natalie Portman.

And look, the tempestuous bullet-eyed Director (Vincent Cassel) loves BLACK and WHITE to the extent that he actually has a Rorschach blot test on his wall...perhaps a reference to the bleak philosophy of nihilistic vigilante Rorschach from Alan Moores seminal graphic novel Watchmen?), there are body horror/identity cliches everywhere you look and you can pretty much see some of the twists coming as if they were steam trains...but I'm nitpicking.

One final point. In all the reviews I have heard not once do people site the fact that the film highlights the problems with the culture of ballet itself; that masochistic obsession with beauty and perfection, the whispering lies, the back stabbing, the paranoia and cruelty. There may be some reviewers who have (give me links if you know of any) and I wish I could spread myself on the subject, but I should wrap up.
Its beautiful, its scary, its mad and dark. Go see it.

4/5