Monstrous elegance

Rating: 7/10 (26 January 2011)

In typical genre-jumbling style, Darren Aronofsky's fifth feature contains elements of sports drama, horror and operatic romance. The result is a fraught, frightening film about the pursuit of perfection; one that does not concern itself with the experience of watching ballet, but rather the various forms of violence that go into preparing for and performing it.
Nina (Natalie Portman) is chosen by Thomas (Vincent Cassel) to be the Black and White Swans in his re-imagining of Swan Lake. She effortlessly embodies the elegance and fragility of the former role, but can she delve into her dark side, and nail the latter? The arrival of Lily (Mila Kunis), all sensuality and laissez-faire, not to mention a whole bunch of talent, triggers a vicious rivalry and sets Nina's inner runaway train down the tracks.
A lesser film may have focused on the suggestion that the whole dreadful rivalry may be some twisted training device masterminded by the "genius", Thomas. But Aronofsky wisely focuses on the most interesting characters - not Nina and Lily, but Nina and Nina. The fact that Nina is evidently unhinged from the first frame lends the film a slightly monotone quality. But it's far, far from predictable.
That the pursuit presents a path to derangement will not come as a surprise to fans of the director's debut, Pi, while fans of Requiem for a Dream will find the escalating, claustrophobic chaos of the later scenes familiar. Aronofsky seems most at home when he's commanding an anarchic narrative through a warped aesthetic. This probably explains why his most grounded film, The Wrestler, which most closely resembles the real world - as opposed to the world as seen through his protagonist's eyes - feels the least his own.
Black Swan is a deserved Oscar contender (if you believe in that sort of thing) and the work of a consistently impressive auteur.