A Cold, Cruel Masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (11 May 2016)

"I was... perfect," says Nina as she bleeds out and we fade to white.
Perfection is what this movies pursues: beautiful, artful, perfection. And for the most part, it succeeds. Though it prioritizes style over character to a fault, the end result is a pretty, dark, smart evocative tale of a mentally unstable ballerina who has been thrust to the lead of a production of Swan Lake.
Perhaps the best attribute of this film is its ability to put us inside Nina's head. It's not overt about it, at least not until it needs to be, but the way they shoot and display everything makes us feel like we're in her skin. This neutralizes a lot of the film's low points and gives it another interesting later to chew on. Some parts of the film are obviously Nina's hallucinations, specifically two scenes with her friend/rival/love Lily: one in which the two of them share a hot sex scene that a lot of guys probably skip to when they pull up this film on their Netflix account, and another in which Nina kills Lily with a mirror shard. But a lot of other scenes could either be real or hallucinations. You're not sure.
That feeling of unsureness is appropriate, as Nina can't tell what real and what's not. She as confused as she is self-harming and bulimic. A scene near the end in which she pulls a shard of mirror out of her own stomach is gruesome to watch. You feel her pain and empathize with her more than you otherwise would have. Portman is fantastic in this movie. She takes a systematically restrained character, one who, as opposed to the overt Lily, tries to not show any emotion, and makes her mystic, almost classical.
Mila Kunis, who plays Lily, is a joy to watch. Witty and crude, she's Nina's diametric opposite. I would not have minded if the movie had focuses around her, though I understand that the film would have to be adjusted quite a lot. Winona Ryder plays the old prima ballerina, who has been run out of the role of the Swan Queen by Portman and is now psychotic, or so Nina's perspective leads us to believe. It's nice to see her acting again, and it's a funny role from a meta sense. Aronofsky assembled a star cast.
Speaking of him, I was surprised to learn that he's an American. Both this and the other film I've seen of his, Requiem of a Dream, have a cold, visceral, artistic touch that seems very European. If nothing else, he has established his own style, which I appreciate. A director that has no distinctive touches might as well not be behind the camera.
The film is gorgeous, particularly during the hallucination sequences. The dream at the beginning in which she sees herself performing on stage is one of the prettiest openings I've seen. Notice how there is a heavy use of black and white imagery, particularly during the first half of the movie. During the second half, as her situation grows more dire, more and more red creeps in.
It's not a film that will change your life, but it's certainly a high-quality spectacle with some real staying power. It was an instant classic, and that's not gonna change any time soon.
By: Joshua A. Fagan http://jfmillenniumreviews.blogspot.com/