A movie that seriously messes with your head

Rating: 9/10 (10 September 2013)

This movie serious messes with my head, though it is not the first movie where the world of the dream and the world of reality come crashing together to the point that it is difficult to tell what is real and what is not. In a way I can see that numerous good films are going to take this technique, particularly in our existentialist society. Other films of a similar vein would be Brazil and, while I have not seen it, American Psycho (though it is only recently that I have discovered that there is a debate as to whether the protagonist's actions were entirely in a dream world).
Black Swan takes place in the back rooms of the New York Ballet Company as they prepare to perform another version of Swan Lake. However the difference here is that we have the same actor (or dancer) playing the white swan and the black swan. In the original story, the black swan steals the love of the prince from the white swan damning her forever to live as a swan. However in this production, as comes out in the film itself, the black and the white swan are basically the same person, and that it explores the competing sides of our own personality.
However, while the commentators talk about how this film is about how Nina goes from being the puritanical white swan to the sordid and evil black swan, I saw it somewhat differently. Instead I saw it as the manifestation of the stress that encompasses the actors and actresses as the seek to perform the perfect role, as in this case, the role of the white swan. While there is a lot of talk about how, while she can play the white swan, she cannot play the black swan, and that to be able to do it she must delve into her dark side and unleash that part of her personality, I saw it more as the resulting stress that one experiences as one comes out on stage in front of thousands who expect a perfect performance.
In many cases this film is about a descent into madness, and we see that descent as complete near the end where she kill's her double and then goes out onto stage and performs the perfect set. As is said in the film, it is not surprising that there is somebody that wants her role because everybody wants her role, which adds further to the stress to perform well.
The end of the film is left in limbo, wondering whether she is dead or not, but once again I believe that it has something to do with her descent into madness. Throughout the film her one desire is to perform the perfect dance. In fact he desire to perform the perfect dance (to the extent that she leaves everything else behind) means that when she actually does it there is nothing left to accomplish. My suspicion is that while she may not be dead (and that in and of itself is debatable) I do not believe that she will be coming back on stage, and is more likely to be left in a catatonic state, similar to the state in which the ballerina that she replaced has been left in.
There is also the aspect of her coming to terms with her sexuality, however once again I do not believe that that is necessarily a major aspect of the film. She begins the film frigid, but in many ways it is because her mother holds such a tight reign on her. We notice that in the first scene where she is masturbating, she stops when she discovers her mother sleeping in the chair next to her. However, the lesbian love scene (which so horrified my mother) more likely represents her finally breaking free of her mother's hold that for her coming to terms with her sexuality. I suspect that the reason she broke away from the guy in the nightclub has more to do with her coming to realise that she was kissing a stranger than kissing a man.
Remember, she is a romantic at heart, which is why she is a ballerina, which means that the idea of promiscuous sex would not enter her mind. The reason she hallucinates the girl in her room rather than a guy is because she has never been with a guy (so does not know what it feels like) and does not have a deep relationship with a guy for her to have that image. However, remember that at the end of the film she does go up to the producer and passionately kisses him, before heading back to the change rooms to change back into the white swan.