12/18/10 - Black Swan

Black Swan (2010, 108 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0947798/

This was probably one of the most hyped movies of the year. Darren Aronofsky directs this film and I knew very little going into my watch. I was aware of Aronofsky and his quality movies in the past but this looked like a psychological thriller with some bits of body horror mixed in but really I didn't know what to expect. I guess one clue was its influence by Repulsion and The Red Shoes and having seen Repulsion earlier this year that would help a bit.

The film follows Nina Sayers / The Swan Queen (Natalie Portman) as she studies for the lead in a new production of Swan Lake. Lily / The Black Swan (Mila Kunis) plays her antagonist and rival for the part while Thomas Leroy / The Gentleman (Vincent Cassel) is in charge of the production. Nina's mother Erica Sayers / The Queen (Barbara Hershey) and Beth Macintyre / The Dying Swan (Winona Ryder) have smaller roles.

It's hard to start with Black Swan as it really isn't like many other movies I've seen. Thus, I'll start with the first shot of the film: a long take of Nina dancing the part of the Swan Queen. First off, it's chilling from the get go. This shot is simply amazing as it's a swooping and mesmerizing long take of Nina just going to work with these dance moves. Obviously, I don't know much about ballet so I don't know how hard they are but right away it pushes Natalie Portman into this believable role as a trained ballet dancer. This is naturally important given the nature of the film as it turns out that she is in every single scene. At the end, this scene turns out to be a dream of Nina's which gives us another insight to her character: she's so focused on doing so well in the production that she even dreams about it. It's the first look into this perfect image that she's striving towards the whole time.

Moving on, Portman's performance is incredible. As I mentioned, the character of Nina Sayers is in every single scene in the movie and this does complicated things to the storyline. For one, we are forced to see everything essentially through her perspective. There's no knowledge of any event if it doesn't occur with Nina actually there. But further, as the movie goes deeper psychologically, Nina's mental demons manifest themselves on the screen more and more and as viewers we are left confused on what to believe and what not to believe. These psychological thrills and body horror bits will be talked about later. Anyway, I felt like this constant focus on Nina almost placed the movie in a weird film noir setting. Nina was a confused protagonist who couldn't be trusted. It wasn't a moral ambiguity like from crime or anything which seems more typical in noir but rather just this relentless perfection that led her to see things through her own twisted vision that was untrustworthy. The other benefit of having Nina on screen so frequently is that Natalie Portman completely dominates the screen with probably her best acting job to date. It's easy to see the complete devotion to ballet that she spent for a long time before filming as she really comes off as believable in the role. There's a hint of "acting" at times as sometimes she seems to come off as unconvincing or a little melodramatic but I think on the whole it's forgivable.For every scene where I doubt her though, there's a scene like the one when she calls her mom after getting the role. Here she displays the perfect fragility with which the role calls for and with this contained excitement she is probably at her most convincing. With my current knowledge, she seems to be the front runner for the Best Actress Oscar in a few months and based on what I've seen so far, I'd say she deserves it.

However, in my opinion the best performance is by Vincent Cassel as the dance instructor Thomas. Despite all the praise I just lumped on Portman, Cassel was more convincing to me. I think the big reason for this was his French nature that gives him a more sensual vibe which fits his character perfectly. Overall, his "look" suits his character as well and I never for one moment felt that he was acting his part. But underneath this "look," there's incredibly great acting as well which I'm not trying to gloss over. Rounding out the acting are other solid performances by Kunis, Ryder, and Hershey but none are on the same level as Portman or Cassel. Kunis deserves recognition though for pulling off a role that seems "out of her league" given the other stuff I've seen her in. The technical dancing skill isn't there for her like it is for Portman but she still does a swell job.

Next, the elements of Black Swan that stand out the most to me are the ones that deal with the unreliable narrative. Most prominent here is the character of Lily. Naturally, there's the question of how real this character is. I think through a complicated analysis of the film, one could create a theory that completely puts Lily as a character in Nina's twisted imagination. I believe the character exists but isn't nearly in the number of scenes - really - that she's shown in. I mean, I think there actually is a Lily character but that Nina imagines her to be a bigger influence in her life than she really is. She's probably Nina's second but clearly she isn't killed by Nina in the dressing room. But more on this last act later. The other cool narrative things are the body horror parts. Obviously, Nina has a small mark on her back but is it one that's turning into wings? Not at all; but Nina imagines it to be so and there's some chilling imagery for which these thoughts are used. Similar other body horror elements are used such as bumps to the skin or when Beth stabs herself (this also fits into that last act that I'll write about later). Really these shots are used as jump scares but they also reveal that deeper undercurrent of perfection for which Nina strives. They end up working very well on both accounts.

One little point is about the plot of Black Swan. The ballet group is putting on a weird production of Swan Lake and the plot of this is constantly referred to throughout the movie (at least on three occasions that I can remember). What I don't really like is that on all three occasions it is outright stated that the Swan Queen dies at the end. Since Nina fills the role of Swan Queen I'm basically expecting her to die all along. Sure, there's a hint of that unreliability floating around in my mind while I watch everything but I'm prepared for her death and so when this happens (well I guess she could technically survive the end but whatever) I'm not all that surprised. I might guess that the point of this is that the ending doesn't really matter and what Aronofsky is focusing on is this quest for perfection and how that in and of itself corrupts her life so the ending isn't important. But I don't think it works well with the audience knowing Nina will die all along.

And this brings me to my comments on the final act. Basically I'm referring to the day of the performance in this section. Actually, right before this, Nina goes to visit Beth in the hospital where there's a brutal stabbing scene. It's not really clear what happens here as at this point the line between illusion and reality is non-existent. I felt like Nina stabbed Beth but I realize that you could interpret this probably any way you wanted. On opening day, Nina arrives late and Lily is set to be the title role. I guess there's supposed to be some tension here but this seemed logical to me since Nina arrived late and Lily is her second. I didn't really like how this was handled. Anyway, during Nina's role as the White Swan she is dropped by the main guy dancer in the ballet. I felt like this also should have been handled better as a point of character. Nina seemed to change drastically by not actually apologizing but putting the blame directly on the guy. This is a character change that comes back to that goal of perfection and I think it should have been explored more. After Thomas yells at the group the point is essentially abandoned. Nina then goes to her dressing room where we see her "murder" Lily who is getting ready to be the Black Swan. Obviously this doesn't actually happen but there's awkward tension here. At this point, I felt Nina was completely untrustworthy so I couldn't believe anything that happened and was basically not all that surprised when it was revealed that Lily was still alive. Nina goes back on stage as the Black Swan and in one of the cooler shots of the movie we see her spinning and spinning and spinning and morphing into a literal black swan. The effects here are stupendous and it closes with a great shot from the audience of Nina's shadow looking like a black swan. Here, Nina is supposed to have fully transformed herself into the role in her quest for perfection. As she goes back to the dressing room she sees blood from where she hid the body of Lily but it's revealed there's nothing there but that Nina is bleeding from where she imagined she stabbed Lily. I took this to mean that Nina conquered this "evil" side of her that she saw Lily to represent but in doing so she killed her "good" self which is represented by the White Swan (which she changes into for the last part of the ballet) but I am not sure this is the proper interpretation. As she does her final jump to end the show she's shown bloody and near death. The movie then ends. Basically, I think the movie falls apart here at the end. There's a smorgasbord of emotions running all over the place with twisted imagery real and imagined filling up the screen. It's not that it's too much for the senses or anything, I just think that some of it seems thrown out there with no explanation. I just felt like the movie was building and building to something and that it ended with a whimper. I call it having "Stairway to Heaven pacing" if the movie builds and builds and builds until the final act where everything explodes. Black Swan had this until the ending when it didn't quite explode. Maybe this all goes back to what I said about the movie perhaps being about the journey to perfection rather than the end result, but as it stood, I felt like there could have been much more here at the end.

I alluded to the effects of Nina's transformation into the black swan with the one cool shot. Well, really, the effects in Black Swan are really good throughout. Many times these transformations are done in one shot (such as Nina morphing into Lily) and that makes them all the more bizarre, twisted, and unsettling. This final effect with the black swan is the best one but all of them are really well done. Another effect that Aronofsky uses is the frequent use of close-ups. It's almost unsettling how ridiculously close the camera seems to constantly follow Nina. Other characters naturally don't get this treatment and it's a subtle thing that made me feel a little more awkward with Nina. One last technical aspect of Black Swan is the camerawork. There's tons of mirrors in the movie which almost always serve some point in the constant struggle between illusion and reality. But what I was most impressed with was how there was never a visible camera in the shots. The best of these was when the camera swung around Thomas with a mirror basically behind him but the camera was never seen. I thought this shot was awesome from a technical perspective even if it was probably just something simple like angled mirrors set up to look straight. Like the special effects, there's other examples of this use of mirrors but this was the best one.

The music of Black Swan also deserves some mention. I doubt it'll become as iconic as some other stuff from Requiem for a Dream or The Fountain which were also done by Clint Mansell, but it was still great. The best word to describe the score here is haunting as it's "ominous-ness" seems to creep on you as a viewer. It doesn't intrude on the film like the score of Inception did (though in reading some end of the year lists, many people loved this score) but it's still an integral part of everything that's going on on screen. I also found out that some of the songs are simple twistings and distortions from the appropriate "Swan Lake." This is a simple thing but it works on that psychological level which Black Swan is constantly tormenting. Really, the score is perhaps going unnoticed from what I've read but it's up there as one of the best I've heard so far this year.

Finally, I think the final act has the best line in the movie. Well, not really a full line, but a phrase that throws everything for a loop. Beth is seen as the iconic dancer for the group that is past her prime and retiring but who Nina strives to be like with her relentless pursuit of perfection. Thomas refers to Beth as his "little princess" and Lily asks if Thomas calls Nina this yet. Nina says that it's a title reserved only for Beth. However, as Nina lays there dying Thomas rushes to her and tells her she was great and calls her his "little princess." Nina, essentially delusional at this point, seems to not even hear him but only mentions how perfect she was. It's chilling how much Nina sacrificed in order to achieve this dream that she basically ended up being wrong about.

Overall, I gave this film an 8/10. Black Swan is only a very good movie and not the iconic film I thought it might be. However, it's still complex (in the good way) and it's twisting , turning, and thought-provoking plot will probably be debated in my mind for a few more days. What really pushes Black Swan above the 7/10 ranking of "very good" though is the top-notch performances by Portman and Cassel.