Black Swan

A one-film post this week, resultant of a trip to the cinema.

#1 - BLACK SWAN

Stars - Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder

Director - Darren Aronofsky

Memorable Quote - 'The only person standing in your way is you. It's time to let her go. Lose yourself.'

Review - Black Swan, let's make no mistake here, is not the gentle ballet movie the old couple who sat in front of me were expecting. In fact, it's no easy ride at all, and as the lines between reality and delusion become blurred, it's the audience's job to pay enough attention to keep up.

We begin with a simple story, the dancer who is herself a dancer's daughter, trapped in her maternal home and performing to all of her mother's wishes. There is something certainly creepy and restrained about how Erica keeps Nina childlike and innocent, under a strict regime of diet, sleeping timetable, and even wardrobe. Nina's life is dancing, that much is clear, and without the Black Swan element of the storyline it would have been easy enough to make a movie about how she breaks out from her mother's overwhelming influence and live a little. This, I feel, is where most of those audiences who disliked the film would have been lost: there is almost an unnecessary element to the extra plot, as if we are seeing two stories at once. No matter; no film is perfect, and a large amount of audiences do enjoy the disturbed element of the plot.

The way that Nina's dark side, the black swan, takes over begins to be clear right from the very moment that the mysterious scratches appear on her back, and when her mirror image begins to act out on its own the sense of fear that is generated is palpable. Almost every scene in the movie contains reflective surfaces, so we begin to feel that she will never be safe from this dangerous reflection, particularly when her delusions begin to play out in front of her eyes. The deceptions are layered on top of one another - not only was Lily not looking at her threateningly in her room, she was not even there! The biggest reality-twist shock for me was the moment when Lily appears, alive, outside the dressing room, and we realise that Nina stabbed herself instead of her. Though it was really quite far-fetched that she managed to dance the entire second act with a piece of glass in her side, and also that the blood did not begin to show until the last moment, I suppose that's cinematic license.

Vincent Cassel is pretty much the standard go-to man for French rogues in American films, and he fulfills this role well as ever. Particularly towards the end, we begin to see that he is not actually evil or an uncaring man - he is proud of and almost blown away by Nina's performance, and seems genuinely surprised and flattered when she kisses him. Her mother, too, is willing to overlook broken fingers in order to tend to her daughter, instead of acting like the witch imprisoning her in the tower as she was at first made out to be.

The film is really very quiet throughout, something that made the cinema not the best place to see it I feel - hearing every rustle of someone else's popcorn is not what the quiet scenes were made for. The ballet music was, however, very effectively used, as were the subtle noises or shifts in music as in the club scene. Those noises right at the edges of our hearing add to the overall tension and fear factor of the film, dragging us in to her world of paranoia and delusion.

Overall I was impressed with the film; Portman's performance is compelling, and the other cast members also fit their roles perfectly, particularly Kunis' act as the dark side of Nina's delusion and also the innocent dancer who she is revealed to be when we see that it is a delusion. All round, I recommend it, though perhaps seeing it on DVD would improve the experience. 4.5/5