Movie Review: Black Swan

What people are saying about Black Swan is true – the film IS brilliant, and Natalie Portman is very convincing as the highly driven, perfectionist ballerina Nina Sayers. In a nutshell of adjectives, the film is confronting, graphic, sexual, tumultuous and a visceral experience which finishes on a thrilling climax.

There was a constant motif of mirrors - but what is real and what is just a reflection of reality?! Ooooh!

At first, we get the sense that Nina is nothing special notwithstanding her almost painful dedication to the world of ballet. Her mother is one of those pushy, helicopter-Mum types. A former ballerina herself, she is simultaneously supportive, yet she also feeds Nina’s warped view of reality by smothering her. Their relationship is unsettling at first – her mother tucks her into bed every night as if she is five years old, and opens a musical jewellery box which plays the tune to Swan Lake and has a rotating ballerina figurine as Nina sleeps – and gets progressively more disturbing as Nina embodies the persona of the evil Black Swan. A particularly chilling scene comes when there is a close-up of the broken ballerina figurine, rotating slowly to the haunting music of Swan Lake.

Seedy man Leroy 'seducing' Nina

Nina’s quest for perfection is the cause of her ultimate demise. “I just want to be perfect,” she says to the seedy ballet director Thomas Leroy. He chooses her to play the Swan Queen in the production of Swan Lake. Nina is the perfect White Swan – beautiful, controlled, uptight. However, she is a dismal Black Swan, not nearly captivating or sensual enough. Leroy, in an effort to loosen her up, questions Nina about her sex life and even tries to seduce her. It’s really awkward and just reinforces what a massive creep he is.

A major part of the film focuses on Nina’s psychosis. In the beginning, it’s almost suffocating to watch Nina’s daily life. It really does seem like she has no social life, no contact with anyone besides the people at the ballet company and her mother. But her encounters with Lily, another ballerina who is seemingly the perfect Black Swan-type dancer, trigger something dangerous. Nina’s OCD turns into hallucinations, fits of rage and self-harm. Here is where the film gets reeaaallly trippy – there is no telling what is real and what is imagined. This is also where the film gets graphic – blood, broken toe-nails, a rash that won’t go away. Oh, and a yummy scene where Beth (Winona Ryder), a has-been ballerina, stabs herself multiple times in the face with a nail file, though rest assured I think that was all in Nina’s head.

Nina is extremely threatened by Lily despite Lily being ostensibly supportive. Lily becomes her doppelganger, an alter-ego. In fact, in a lot of scenes, there are flashes where Lily turns into Nina in what is ultimately the culmination of one big mind game. Leroy’s words to Nina are true – “the only person standing in your way is you”. The final scenes are quite thrilling: the film goes in and out of Nina’s mind and you have no idea what is real and what is imagined.

Creepy

The other things that I found interesting was the way in which the ballet scenes at the beginning and at the end were shot. The camera moved with the dancers so that the audience had a front view of Nina’s face most of the time which looked cooler than it sounds. It gave a sense of really being there, as if you were on stage with her and experiencing the same things as well.

This film was chillingly good. And Natalie Portman got a Golden Globe for her performance, which is affirmation of the hype surrounding this film. I’m going to shut-up now.

9 out of 10.

~ Hurley Who?