Black Swan

It's taken me a little while to digest the experience of watching Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. Fortunately, I write things like this to satisfy my own desire to sketch out my thoughts, rather than meet deadlines, because of course I'm a little late to the party here.

To rewind a little before getting into Black Swan, I should note that Aronofsky has always been able to craft work that I want to return to, again and again. This has even been true of Requiem for a Dream, which I can easily rank as one of the best films I've ever seen, and also one of the most heart-wrenching. There is a piece of trivia from Requiem about Matthew Libatique, the film's DP, letting the camera drift on Ellen Burstyn's beautiful and crushing monologue - because he was crying. This has always stood as a great representation of that film to me - it is about relatively pedestrian characters and problems, told with operatic intensity.

That is one of Aronofsky's gifts, I think - the ability to place us so close to his characters that we have the opportunity to feel what they do, to care for them even when they make choices we don't agree with. It's the sort of care one normally spares for family - those you love despite all the flaws.

So, we arrive at Black Swan, in which we will follow Natalie Portman as Nina. She is a quiet, fragile dancer, a completely adequate member of a New York ballet company. She is pursuing the role of the Swan Queen in their upcoming production of Swan Lake, and her director has flatly told her that while he believes she can represent the clean goodness, the tidy chaste beauty of the White Swan, she doesn't have it in her to play the seductive nature of the Black Swan.

There is more plot than that, of course, but that is enough to inform everything that happens in the film. A supporting cast that includes Nina's past-her-prime ex-dancer of a mother (Barbara Hershey), the lecherous company director (Vincent Cassel) and last but not least, Lily - a girl who embodies everything Nina needs to become the Black Swan.

Lily is played by Mila Kunis, who I had already believed to be very capable. She turns in a performance that makes me giddy to contemplate the career she may have ahead of her. Kunis pairs remarkably well with Portman, whose looks are enough to let me consistently underestimate her. I should know better. This might be the best of her career to date - and I say that not having forgotten about Closer. Portman is in full, remarkable control of her craft here, steering a performance between the extremes of silent shyness and deafening madness and uncertainty. It takes a grand performer to perfectly compose the appearance of losing your grip.

As I said, there is more plot to Black Swan that I've mentioned, but the real delight is in watching the realization of this world - which is half the real world of Manhattan ballet and half Nina's mind. This was another stroke that reminded me strongly of Requiem, which was situated with great attention to detail and texture in Brooklyn. Here, Aronofsky leads us in to the world of ballet - and not that of the glitzy performances, but instead of the back stage, the relentless practice, the harsh criticism, the punishments on the body, and overall, the sacrifices made not only to become a part of it, but to become the best.

In the broad strokes, that's what Black Swan is about - what you lose in growing, and so I suppose that makes it a loss of innocence story. It's magnified to epic volume here, since Nina changes in nearly every way from where she starts the story off. We have the pleasure of living in her heads as events unfold, which means we're never given a grasp on reality. What happens in the film could be called a descent into madness, but a better term might be a revelation of madness. Factors and forces push Nina into an eruption of energy she didn't even know she had, bursting from her as though it had been percolating for years. Maybe it had.

It's strongly recommended viewing - and please, go see this with an audience, don't just wait for the DVD. If you're the kind of person that can feel the energy in the room, it'll help the whole experience as the tension builds and things get more and more extreme. This will easily rank amongst my favourites from 2010.