Black Swan

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Writers: Mark Heyman (screenplay), Andres Heinz (screenplay),

Stars: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel

Black Swan is unique look at the pressure people put themselves under to accomplish the impossible, perfection.

Black Swan follows Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) an up and coming dancer in New York City. Thru years of training, possibly not by choice, she gets casts as the lead in Swan Lake, where she must dance the parts of the innocent White Swan,and the lustful Black Swan. Nina is flawless as portraying the White Swan, but cannot capture the sexual nature of the Black Swan. Her instructor (Vincent Cassel) demands that she lose herself and become one with the character, and we watch as she pushes herself to madness as she becomes “Black Swan.”

Black Swan is a sexual, beautiful, disturbing, deliberate, and focused character study. There are no fleshed outside stories, no monologues or meaningless character conversations to explain Nina Sayers thought process. It is up the audience to decipher what has happened. Darren Aronofsky treats the audience like intelligent adults, and that is a rarity that one can appreciate. The entirety of film is about Nina’s performance, and we follow her as the pressure grows. Fragmenting her psyche as we build toward the crescendo.

Natalie Portman’s performance is mesmerizing, taking control of the screen while staying aloof and subdued. While the supporting cast also gives a strong performance, except Winnoa Ryder, I do not think it is important to get into it. Natalie Portman is who you came to see. Natalie Portman needs to be commended for her dramatic physical transformation for Black Swan. Her weight loss and physical training for the dance sequences have the devotion of a Christian Bale in The Machinist, or Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull. She has come a long way since Queen Amidala in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menaceas her dance with grace to some of the best music heard in a film last year.  

The music in this film is simply amazing. Clint Mansell spin on the classics and the implementation of the sound into certain scenes sets the ambiance of pure tension and madness. No other movie in recent memory has conveyed such compositions as Black Swan. Even if you do not see the movie, go and buy the Official Soundtrack to support another successful collaboration between Clint Mansell and director Darren Aronofsky.

Black Swan confirms Darren Aronofsky as a master of the modern cinema. He is able to capture the true nature of a story in his camera and make the audience experience the events on a personal level with disturbing imagery, subtle juxtapositions, and fantastic cinematography. We saw the raw brutality and depravity in The Wrestler, the trappings and surreal qualities of addiction in Requiem for a Dream, and now we see the madness of perfection in Black Swan.  

- Crimson R.