Excellent but not flawless

Rating: 8/10 (9 December 2010)

This is not the type of film you write a review for in just five minutes, but here it goes - unlike the super realistic The Wrestler, and similarly to Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan starts off "here and now", complete - in documentary style, and ends in a vortex of hallucination and CGI. It is an excellent piece of work but not without flaws.
Story wise what I missed is a better exposition for Nina and her frigidity. The demanding mother, a ballet dancer who "could never make it" and is now burdening her daughter with the task of succeeding where she had failed is the "mother of all clichés". The first half of the story, where we are still very much grounded in the "real" is overwhelmingly allegorical - the mirrors, reflections, the back and white - are all very much "in your face" - no gentle touches, no subtlety.
The same goes for the way Thomas is trying to "open up" Nina - through her sexuality. Instead of a subtle and slow seduction what we get is a brutal rape, of both Nina and the audience: "go home and touch yourself", "would you f*ck that girl?" - it felt almost juvenile and achieved the wrong effect.
Another major flaw is the repeated use of what we first think to be real but later discover to be an hallucination - again, not only a cheap vehicle but one that is used several times, each time with a diminishing effect. Nina is losing her mind - OK, we get it - but stretch that line too far and you lose the audience too.
This is Aronofsky's style and the result is extremely dramatic and powerful, but to me it feels "cheap"... it is the easier path to drama - not the sophisticated one. The audience laughter at what was meant to be very serious moments is a testament to the failure of Aronofsky to master the art.
8/10