Run, Don't Walk

Black Swan

Black Swan is an amazing dance (oh yeah I went there) between an Actor and Director that shouldn’t work in any way but through their sheer perseverance and skill just does. This thing could go off the rails at any second but never quite does. Natalie Portman gives the performance of her career as Nina a fragile prima ballerina in New York City who gets a chance to perform the lead role in Swan Lake and basically loses her shit at the challenge of having to dance the Black Swan part of the ballet.

Darren Aronofsky directs this like an Adrienne Lynne sexy-time 80’s thriller cum Prestige Art Film about the Ballet. This film could only be set in the world of the ballet not just because of the main story but because the details are somehow less ridiculous, less tawdry, less titillating because the average viewer doesn’t know much about that rarified world. The built-in prestige and High-Art pretensions (not to mention our built-in knowledge of the intensity  in the work for the dancers) work in its favor because if this was set anywhere else, the beauty and crazy equation would’ve been way off. It had to be about ballet for many reasons and that’s one of the smartest things about the whole setup. It couldn’t possibly be set anywhere else and the plot and character beats completely work because of that.

Only an actor of Portman’s caliber could play Nina. The audience brings an idea of her intelligence, education, and I hate to say it, but breeding to the theatre with them and Aronofsky films her beautifully. Her training for the film is apparent and she is completely convincing in the dancing sequences (at least to my non-dance-trained-eye).  Her slow unravelling is fascinating and horrible to watch and she plays fragile from the get-go. 

Barbara Hershey brings shades of Carrie’s mother and I’m not talking Bradshaw.  Winona Ryder is brave in what is perhaps a parallel universe snapshot of her own career. Mila Kunis proves that she can do more than be annoying on a bad sitcom.

The script is a back and forth is-she-crazy-or-isn’t-she 50’s horror movie cheese that, again, is somehow elevated into Art because of its ballet world setting, Aronofsky’s masterful directing and Portman’s brilliant performance. Without these three elements this just couldn’t possibly have happened.

It is audacious, horrifying, sexy, ridiculous (there’s that word again), beautiful, thrilling and lurid. I want to revisit Black Swan in 5 years or so just to see if it works still. But don’t wait that long. It is the weirdest award contender that’s come down the pike in a long time and whether you sit in rapture or giggle at its over-the-top-ness, this is brave and worth-watching filmmaking.