Editorial
Front Page - Friday, January 7, 2011
The Critic's Corner
"The Black Swan"
David Laprad
In “Black Swan,” the artistic director of a New York City ballet company chooses “Swan Lake” as the opening production for the company’s new season. “It’s been done to death,” he says to his dancers. “But we’re going to do it differently.”
Darren Aronofsky, the director of the movie, uses that scene to tell moviegoers they’re about to see a version of “Swan Lake” unlike any other performance they’ve seen.
Aronofsky probably wanted his audience to be prepared for what was to come, as the source material on which he based his film ends tragically. In “Swan Lake,” a virgin prince falls in love with a beautiful woman named Odette, who’s come under the spell of an evil sorcerer and must spend her days as a swan, swimming in a lake of tears. At night, she becomes human again. However, the sorcerer causes another woman to look like Odette, and the prince asks the impostor to marry him. When the real Odette sees the prince propose to another girl, she throws herself into the lake, ending her life.
“Black Swan” takes this classic tale and turns it into a psychological thriller about a dancer’s narcissistic pursuit of perfection. The dancer, Nina, lives with her domineering mother and is obsessed with the approval of her artistic director, Thomas Leroy. When Leroy decides to replace his prima ballerina for the new production, Nina is his first choice.
Nina has competition in the form of Lily, a free-spirited girl whose dancing isn’t as technically proficient as Nina’s but is more expressive. “Swan Lake” requires a dancer who can embody the innocence and grace of the White Swan, but also transform into the Black Swan, who represents cunning and sexuality. Nina dances the role of the White Swan perfectly, but is too repressed to be able to do justice to the Black Swan. When Thomas applauds Lily’s performance as the Black Swan and casts her as Nina’s alternate, Nina becomes fixated on honing the darker aspect of her role.
Nina’s rivalry with Lily causes her to descend into madness. To suggest all is not well in Nina’s head, Aronofsky employs a number of creepy and unsettling visuals. These moments of unhinged psychosis increase in intensity, visceral power and sheer weirdness as the movie progresses, and culminate in a remarkable scene where Nina metaphorically transforms into the Black Swan during the company’s premiere performance of the ballet.
The key to Nina’s unraveling can be found in her primary relationships. Her mother represents oppression, while Thomas represents her struggle to break out of her abusive relationship with her mom and satisfy her innate desires.
This unhealthy tug of war is best expressed in two complementary scenes. In the first, Thomas grills Nina on her sexual history and then tells her to go home and touch herself. Although his methods are unconventional, and at times abusive, Thomas wants to awaken in Nina the part of her he believes can nail the part of the Black Swan.
In a later scene, Nina wakes up in the morning and hesitantly begins to do her homework while still in bed. Suddenly, Aronofsky cuts to a shot of Nina’s mother sleeping in a chair across the room. Horrified, Nina stops, slamming shut the door to her sexual awakening. When that pent up energy is eventually unleashed, it’s already morphed into something horrifying.
I don’t want to spoil how Lily comes into play, so suffice to say the pressure cooker in Nina’s brain skews her perspective of her alleged rival and keeps them from having what would have been a completely normal relationship.
Central to the success of this fascinating movie is Natalie Portman’s superb performance as Nina. Imagine winding a watch as tightly as you can, where its insides are about to spring loose; Portman maintains that level of tension throughout the entire movie. Nina’s fear and desperation are evident in her face, the way she speaks and how she dances. Portman is likely a well-balanced individual, but it’s interesting that she delivered a virtually perfect performance of Nina.
Aronofsky heightens the psychological tension with his direction. The apartment Nina and her mother share is small and made up of tightly confined spaces, and her room is decorated like a little girl’s. In addition, Aronofsky shoots Nina up close and regularly follows her from behind like a nagging presence, keeping pace as she hurries in the other direction. Leroy presses into her, invading her personal space. And when the monsters in Nina’s head are about to manifest themselves in some strange vision, Aronofsky zeroes in on her face to let viewers know they’ll be seeing things from her perspective.
“Black Swan” is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s more cerebral than visceral, and aimed more at an art house crowd than a mass audience. But it is accessible, brilliantly made and absolutely riveting.
Email David Laprad at dlaprad@hamiltoncountyherald.com.
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