Dreams go to Camp

Rating: 7/10 (6 January 2011)

There is a well-known dream that so many people all over the world have experienced. It goes like this: you arrive to school to take a test that you never studied for.... or you never even showed up for class! Or you come to school naked. Yup, you show up at school one day, you are about to enter the school, but then you realize (to your horror) that you are naked. Or you don't have your pants on.
There are variations on the dream. One is "The Actor's Nightmare." You are about to go on stage in front of an audience, and you have never read the play. You forgot to show up for rehearsals.
Of course the dream is completely unreal. Nobody could have just realized they were completely naked as they enter the school. No director would allow you to go on stage if you never showed up for rehearsal.
But in the dream, that is what happens. Really. You really did show up naked or not knowing your lines.
Now, we are all familiar with Fables. Like the Tortoise and the Hare. The tortoise and the hare race against each other. Is it a true story? I doubt it. But is that what really happens in the fable? Oh yes, in the fable they really do race against each other.
There is a reason that so many people all over the world share the same dream. It is an unreal situation, but there are emotional and intellectual truths revealed by the dream. In the case of the Actor's Nightmare, it is about feelings of unpreparedness. Or inadequacy.
In the fable, we learn how slow and steady can win the race.
Black Swan is a phantasmagorical fable. Phantasmagorical = a swift series of dream images. I won't go into any detail of what happens in the movie. Suffice it to say that some really weird things happen.
It is very likely for people to think of Black Swan as a movie about an insane girl, or hallucinations, or schizophrenia. Certainly, I thought of that at the beginning. It's hard not to.
However, as the story unfolds I realized that the entire story is a fable.
It is not a film about madness or that it takes insanity to create art. Or even some kind of Fight Club doppelganger. Everything in this story is unreal, yet it happens. Just like in a dream. Or in a fable.
And just as in those dreams and fables, there are emotional and intellectual truths to discover in Black Swan.
The movie is about a young woman who leads a child-like existence. No matter how technically skilled a ballerina she is, she will never become the artist she wants to be and remain the simpering child.
This is a coming of age story.
Yes, there are many themes. it gets very complicated. And every scene of the movie is nightmarish. There is a lot to think about in this movie, and a lot to laugh about. Yeah, I not only liked the movie, but I also found it bombastic, ridiculous, and preposterous. However, as events came to their conclusion, I was amazed by the way the director coalesced all his thoughts into a rather powerful, stunning package.
So I found it to be a work of bravura. Gutsy, 'I don't care what the critics think' bravura. He made a camp movie about a subject that is not camp at all. Bravo.