Review: Black Swan

Natalie Portman stars as a ballerina in the NY Ballet Company, and has landed the lead in “Swan Lake”. However, whilst director Vincent Cassel finds her perfect for the Swan Queen, she’s far too controlled and ‘too perfect’ for the darker flip-side, the Black Swan. Portman, who lives in claustrophobic hell with her clingy mother Barbara Hershey, starts to find the task of enacting the two differing personalities an enormous strain, both physically and psychologically. This becomes even more amplified when Mila Kunis turns up as Portman’s alternate, an outgoing, adventurous sort, who is everything Portman is not. She tries to get Portman out of her shell and away from her mother, and they even end up in bed together. However, is Kunis really all she appears? Is she plotting against Portman so she can take her role? Winona Ryder turns up as the bitchy, aging, and recently sacked premiere ballerina.

Despite all the Oscar nominations and wins, and a somewhat arty subject matter, if you go into this 2010 Darren Aronofsky (“Requiem for a Dream”, “The Wrestler”) film expecting a dainty little arthouse film about ballet, you’re in for a helluva shock. As in psycho shocker, because that’s what this somewhat Polanski-esque film is, a claustrophobic psycho shocker set in the world of ballet. Think of it as “The Red Shoes” meets “Peeping Tom” or “Repulsion”. If ever there was an industry you’d think could breed psychologically fucked up people, ballet would be at the top of the list. All that pressure, restriction, etc. Throw in Barbara Hershey well-cast as a nutjob mother while you’re at it. Aronofsky creates a film so so tense and tightly wound as its lead character that I almost felt like I was hyperventilating at times.

Right from the word go, the film grabs you visually, with a wonderful colour scheme, lots of dark colours throughout. The presumably handheld camerawork by Matthew Libatique (“Tigerland”, “Requiem for a Dream”) has a dizzying quality in the dance scenes that might just be the most apt use of handheld I’ve seen. Meanwhile, the music score by Clint Mansell is equally impressive, taking the music of Tchaikovsky and tweaking and distorting it.

In some ways I admire Aronofsky for going all-out with the horror aspect of the film, but it has a drawback too. Aronofsky brings out the little visual flourishes and doppelganger symbolism so early on in the film that it doesn’t take long for the audience to work out what is going on. This isn’t a film that depends on a twist ending, but the lack of subtlety in this regard does rob the film of greatness (Imagine what kind of overblown ego trip a guy like Brian De Palma would’ve made out of it, however, and you’ll feel better about Aronofsky’s work here). It’s a little too transparent, and by the end of the film, a little overdone, especially when someone appears to have grown an abnormally elongated neck and wings. I mean, come on.

However, let me say that this does not mean that Portman’s character is mad from start to finish in a one-note fashion, as some have suggested. There is definitely a trajectory the character goes on. I’m just saying that the trajectory is obvious from the start, mostly due to all the visual flourishes and heavy-handed ‘clues’.

The film is impeccably well-cast down the line, but in particular a fragile Natalie Portman really did deserve her Oscar win, no doubt about it. This is the kind of tricky, emotionally/psychologically brittle characterisation that could easily have gone over-the-top, especially given how hyperbolic the film itself gets at times. At no point does Portman play things for histrionics. Barbara Hershey also deserves credit for similarly not falling into cliché. This is not just an overbearing stage mother as such. Yes, there’s a demand for perfectionism, but Portman is hard enough on herself, and it’s not necessarily clear if that is tied directly to her mother’s influence, or a mental imbalance removed from anything to do with her mother. It’s a more complex character than just a stage mother, she’s actually quite frightening. Stage mother or not, she’s still an overbearing and frankly unpleasant ‘Smother’, the type of  mother who is so painfully lonely and insecure themselves (she’s a former ballerina) that they want to be their child’s one and only friend. Even though they never seem to have anything nice to say to one another, I might add. Hershey might even secretly hope Portman fails. But is that because she’s a horrible and jealous person who wants Portman to fail so that she doesn’t get to enjoy the success that she herself never had, either? Or is it because she can then be the one to comfort Portman in defeat? It’s certainly a very sad and completely psychologically destructive relationship between two neurotics. Does Hershey have a reason to be clingy and suffocating, or is her behaviour causing Portman’s mental disintegration to some degree? That was something constantly on my mind throughout, although there are also hints of abuse (sexual and physical) that do tend to tip the scales one way instead of the other.

Vincent Cassel is also spot-on in another role that might lend itself to caricature, but Cassel steers away from it. I do have to wonder, though, how it is that European men, no matter their looks (I’m sure some consider Cassel a sex symbol, I think he’s a bit odd-looking), are always able to  get away with being lascivious, misogynistic, chauvinistic pigs. I just don’t get it. In a way, Mila Kunis comes across as the most likeable (and certainly the most jaw-droppingly beautiful) thing in the entire film, and even when her character seems to be something of a ‘bad girl’ or a bitch, one can never be too sure if it’s the truth or just what Portman’s mind is projecting. Kunis’ performance is effortlessly able to suggest either theory, and I found it interesting that she had a fiery, passionate, yet bubbly quality- things that Portman’s character clearly lacked, so even though she may not have been an especially likeable person, she was still a breath of fresh air in an otherwise suffocating nightmare. That said, even though I know practically nothing about dance, I felt Kunis’ character had more of a Latin/ballroom vibe about her, rather than ballet. I reckon Kunis (who has come a long way since “That 70s Show”) deserved an Oscar nomination for this, easily. I feel a bit sorry for Winona Ryder finally getting back into some fairly big, mainstream (or in this case, at least Oscar worthy) films after some troubling times...and she’s cast as the has-been diva. That’s really gotta fuck with her head a bit. Having said that, by the time you get to the hospital scene between her and Portman, it is obvious, at least to me, that the role was written (and presumably played) with tongue firmly in cheek, and as black comedy. Certainly, she’s better in this than she was in “The Dilemma”. Fans of TV’s “Lost Girl” (and if you’re not, you damn well should be), will want to take note of Ksenia Solo in a small-ish part as one of the less than friendly ballerinas.

In addition to the slightly obvious nature of the symbolism in the film, the only flaw for me is in the frustrating lack of nudity in the film. Here’s a film that shows Portman masturbating and engaging in lesbian sex, but (presumably due to no-nudity clauses in actresses contracts) no one gets naked at any point in the film. The material needs nudity, and I would never hire an actress with a no-nudity clause. Screw it, cast someone with less talent and a hot bod if you have to. Why show Natalie Portman masturbating in the bathtub if you’re not going to show us everything? That said, the sex scene between Portman and Kunis is still hot. Nudity would’ve made it hotter, though. I’m not just being a perve, the material seems to demand overt sexuality, and not including nudity in that sexuality just draws attention to that lack of nudity.

The screenplay by Anders Heinz, Mark Heyman, and John McLaughlin, is based on a story by Heinz, and to an extent based on “Swan Lake”. This is a hyperrealist psychodrama that loses points for being a tad transparent, but terrific acting under some histrionic circumstances make this a solid film. Not for all tastes.

Rating: B-