The swansong never stops playing.

Rating: 8/10 (21 January 2011)

Black Swan not only centres on the concept of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's (1840 - 1893) ballet Swan Lake, but it too revolves around the work and life of its lead ballerina Nina Sayers and the commitment that she has to endure to bring this production to life. Such is the extreme physical and mental preparations for this role that the lead role, as both Odette and Odile, has to convince both audience and herself that she is literally, in all respects, the part, this magical mystical creature, inevitably metamorphosing into a realm of fantasy and horror.
The insurmountable pressure here can only have adverse effects on those not strong willed enough to withstand its all-consuming glory. Black Swan is not just a film about an Old Russian folk's tale nor is it only about the role of its leading lady; this film measures the true understanding and meaning of what is to be the lead in the most prestigious ballet; Swan Lake.
Darren Aronofsky (The Fountain-2006, The Wrestler-2008) has given us an insight into the mind that is tormented between the two roles of both white and black queens and her struggle to fully understand the line between reality and illusion. It is a parallel of these dual roles and the division of her mind, which must be controlled, as to shine and to remain sane, remain one.
This world of tension and paranoia is beautifully shot and timed to a tee, the claustrophobic, imploding mind's journey here is, too, bittersweet, what with the charming and seductive cinematography it leads itself to a tone and fashion liken to J-horror with a Hitchcock bent, all adding to the flavour of both beauty and bestiality. It is also the films major gift, the stupendous acting of its leading lady Natalie Portman, magnificently delicate and brittle, which personifies her declining into plight and anguish. We see her every contorted expression that feeds her insecurities, fears and anxieties, such a tender fragile spirit on the spiral into the abyss of pure perfection. With perfection, too, comes rejection, and we see a paradox in terms of Ms. Sayers and her inauguration into this highly demanding role and the now retired Swan Queen Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) who shows a mental instability on a different path that leads to her self harming. With or without the role of Swan Queen, she still claims her victims; the swansong is sung and there is no more. It is a perpetual cycle of love and hate, have and have not, life and death, black or white.
This is the major theme of Black Swan, finding ones new inner self and transcending this inner being and the consequences that can lend itself to, it is a topic of, together, self-doubt and self discovery and using the dual roles that is Swan Lake's Queen's is a fitting metaphor for Nina Sayers conflicting personality.
It is a schism that runs although this film, suffering for its art. It is not a pleasant experience to have to witness this transformation, it is a fitting example of a world of dedication, such as the training and sacrifice in which this world of ballerinas' must partake, to become more than the best, more than excellent, to be pure perfection.