Aronofsky has another polarizing film under his belt.

Rating: 8/10 (21 December 2010)

Aronofsky is a visceral director, most of his films are polarizing, Black Swan is no exception. Here, he takes the beautiful and artistic art of being a ballerina, which seems so innocent, and turns it into a sick and twisted mind melt of a film. Black Swan grabs you, shakes you and leaves you wanting more. The film is far from perfect, but it shows that Aronofsky is certainly a master of his craft.
After winning the role of the lead in a production of Swan Lake, Nina becomes obsessed with trying to be perfect for a demanding instructor, her overbearing mother and even herself. Her world is thrown upside down when she thinks that the new girl is vying for her spot, yet not everything is black and white.
Portman plays Nina, a girl who was thrust into his life by her mother, who gave it up to raise her. Her constant obsession with being perfect leads to her ultimate undoing. She tries so hard to please her mother, her instructor and herself that she starts to loose her mind. Her life begins to mirror the story in the production. I say the word mirror because Aronofsky uses this object in almost every scene he can. He shows the duality of the character, she plays both the white swan and the black swan. The creativity of the mirrors is quite something, I don't know if it's true, but it feels like there is a mirror in every scene of the film. As if it's another character, Nina's self reflection trying to break into this life.
Mila Kunis is the new girl who is both beautiful and talented. So of course she becomes Portman's alternate. Her eyes are hypnotic and she plays the role of the bad girl with an attitude. The polar opposite to the uptight and proper Portman. Yet the obsession and paranoia eats away at Portman enough to lead her to some dark places.
Nina becomes so entranced with the story and her performance that she can no longer tell the difference between her hallucinations and reality, even when she plucks a feather from her back and stares at it with her beady red eyes. That's a haunting image. Nina's obsession mirror's Aronofsky's own obsession to the art and the process of filmmaking. Every shot, every colour, every beat is mapped out in his mind and I believe he captured every moment on film. The cinematography in the film is fluid and beautiful, yet visceral when needed to be. There are moments that will get under your skin. I can watch a person being mutilated to no end in Saw, yet the little things that happen in Black Swan are enough to make you cringe. Remember, it's the little things that count.
I praise Aronofsky for taking a different approach to each film. The run and gun style of the Wrestler is far from the picturesque beauty of The Fountain. Black Swan lands somewhere in the middle. The film begins and ends with a beautiful dance number. The last performance in the film is quite beautiful to be honest. I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next, she was possessed and I loved it.
Portman shines in a role that should earn her an Oscar nomination and the film manages to be one of the best of the year. The supporting cast was marvelous, Vincent Cassel is seductive and menacing. Mila Kunis, as stated before is a great counter weight to Portman and Barbara Hershey as Nina's mother feels like icing on the cake. Her relationship to her daughter rivals Carrie at times. I was engrossed with Nina and her deterioration from start to finish. When she told the story of Swan Lake to this guy in a bar, I knew how the film would end. The film takes some time to get to where it wants to go, so the pace is one concern I have with it, yet there is enough of a pay off in the end.
Black Swan is a film that stays with you, whether you enjoyed it or not. Aronofsky doesn't apologize for his films, he makes them the way he wants to and I applaud him for it.