Black Swan
2010, Darren Aronofsky
POSSIBLE SPOILER
The most beautifully put together show of the power of the human mind I've yet encountered. I no more regret ditching ballet when I was 6 now, than I did 3 hours ago, but I am inspired. Aronofsky has managed to seduce his audience and fill them with horror. He uses gimmicky, overly visual things we expect from him, from his repertoire, but controls himself better than usual to actually tell the story, not just splurge on gorgeous sets.
Nina Sayers, after a bunch of initial tension to set the scene of a professional ballerina's life, gets the part of a lifetime: not just the White Swan of Swan Lake, but the Black Swan too. Nina excels in the white half, but can't get it through her control-crazed mind to relax and actually take control, rather than keep herself under control. The odyssey then is Nina realizing in order to do as she's told, she has to break all the rules she thinks are already in place. At the end of the day, it's like trying to make a killer android's head explode.
And explode it shall, for how else can the marvelous Aronofsky work his trade mark surreality into the film? Dopplegangers, animal sounds from humans, talking paintings, anthropomorphism... Yet, in this instance, I feel he might actually have restrained, himself, a little too much. Most of the crazy stuff is saved for the end. Like the producers were reining him in at every scene.
Instead, he relies on filling Nina's life with wholly realistic shows of being overly immersed in a little princess' world (dozens of stuffed animals, all pink everything at home, mother's obsessive paintings of her daughter) desperately trying to take control (she continuously barricades herself in her bed or bath room).
He makes tension by keeping the tightest possible shots on Nina. He goes way overboard on setting up character through costume choice. Nina is always in white. Her rival, Lily, is always in black, and even has a giant tattoo across her back. Her ring tone for her mom is the pinnacle for Swan Lake. Her mom puts on a wind up ballerina jewelery box playing, you guessed it, the pinnacle for Swan Lake. It's this shit that pulls away from the suspension of disbelief – not the spontaneous growth of feathers on one's back.
Either because Aronofsky himself is fascinated by the gritty lives of ballerinas, or he's trying to show the duplicitous tensions therein. Either way, it works. At every possible opportunity he points out masochistic crackings, rippings, pukings. The only slow motion is in an early scene. Tight on of Nina's foot as she lands all her weight repeatedly on the point of her toes of one foot you can see the floor boards bend under the force. Later, there's a scene with the physical therapist/chiropractor. A past habit of self-abuse leads Nina's mother to strip her naked and cut Nina's nails for her. How to break in a new pair of shoes: with scissors and banging and ripping.
The overall effect is a stunning balance between grit and pure satin—the two sides Nina tries so hard to capture in her life. Ever willing to help is the ever-in-black Lily. She is the perfect opposite of Nina. She is promiscuous, always wears a ton of make up, dances with her long hair down and is crazy sure of herself. And she does help...sort of. Lily becomes a fixation of what Nina knows she needs and incorporates this into her growing psychosis.
So easy to let this one go awry, Aronofsky, or his (no kidding) 15 producers, keep it together right to the end. Dream or hallucination scenes have heavy uses of mirrors and tampering with the light. Realistic scenes don't have ambient music. Initial verification for later hallucinations are established immediately, thus the audience is sucked in immediately.
Depending on how you feel about “living fully in the moment” or achieving perfection, Nina does manage to wrestle this out of herself. Through the pressures of her rival, her mother and her director (does ballet have a special name for that?) Nina alternates her clamping with new rebellions as she slowly starts realizing what people may or may not mean by “lose yourself in the role.”
Gluing it all together is the soundtrack to Swan Lake itself. Already haunting, Aronofsky wracks a dozen lesser known strains of it through the repeated practice sessions. He abstracts strains of them and reverbs them between cuts. Not a lot. Just enough to be jarring. Oh, and blending in techno for the ecstasy scene of course. But even that has an underlying riff of Swan Lake. The soundtrack holds it all together.
Major plot hole type things. Why is Lily not chosen over Nina? Is she so much better just in Nina's obesessive head? No. It's verified by Thomas. Why does Thomas focus only on Nina's dancing when all he has to critique her is her attitude. We see three instances early on of him trying to pull out this darker, more fluid, magnetic character. It clearly isn't the steps that are her problem.
Major awesomenss: all the performances. I think, under-appreciated always is Vincent Cassel. Very subtle cuts and shifts of perspective. The exquisite layering of clothes the ballerinas wear: uggs, leg warmers, arm warmers, whatever “shrugs” are, leotards, cami tops, tights, socks, shoes, things on one leg and not the other, things on one arm and not the other, hoodies, scarves, earrings... It's a guidebook on how to look like a collage.
Overall, very very good. Not the best, not my favorite, but I've watched it 3 times in 2 days and like it more each time. Besides, this story isn't confined to ballet. It's the path of the girl's mind that matters. The steps, the dance, are just a vehicle for showing her ascension and downfall to perfect artistic expression.
