Aronofsky's Ballet

Rating: 9/10 (29 January 2011)

Black Swan instantly joins the ranking with the avant-garde masterpieces of Kubrick, Bergman, and most any other art film of a foreign persuasion that embodies the psychological thrills and chills one might experience when obsession takes over, and insanity begins.
Upon my first viewing, I was reminded of several other films that regard an obsession that imminently drive a character to madness, such as The Machinist, A Beautiful Mind, and Pi. Personally, I'm a sucker for these types of films, but I have never before felt such pounding aggression of self-conflict, particularly that of a psychosexual nature based on envy to the tenth power.
The film is not so heavily rooted in plot, but rather inner psyche and metaphorical sequences of psychological terror and distress that, to the audience, is sometimes almost unbearably unsettling. After a ballet company's veteran star is "retiring"--polite euphemism for old and unwanted--a new face is needed. The director, Thomas ("toe-MAH") Leroy, seeks a new face for his new version of Swan Lake, in which both the black and white swans will be played by a single metamorphic dancer. Rivalry ensues between Nina and Lily, the new dancer from San Francisco, and Nina is incidentally flung into a downward spiral that will eventually destroy her, if she does not end up destroying all those around her first. This is beautifully shown on the screen, in the form of an inner entity, her own Black Swan trying to break free, like a demonic possession this innocent white swan cannot control.
*SPOILER* Near the film's climax, this inner black swan is shown to have taken over completely, as Nina performs the ballet's second-to-final act, complete with red eyes and sprouting black feathers. As she walks offstage before the final dance, she looms around the ambient darkness with an erotic smile, moaning in self-love of the dark side that used to frighten her, now swimming in ecstasy. That being said, the final number of this dance scene will give you such chills, you'll swear you are also growing feathers. *END SPOILER* Art is purely based on interpretation, which is ironic, because Black Swan, as stated in the film, is perfect. The sole plot, therefore, is immaterial in comparison to its aesthetic. Even though the two go hand-in-hand, the stream of consciousness through Nina's eyes can stand alone as its own dominant feature, to the point where a simple story is almost unnecessary to convey her persona, psyche, and obsession to be perfect.
Aronofsky is apparently developing a pattern of taking a bold, surreal look at professions, or lifestyles for that matter, that the general public either frowns upon, or disregards without interest: professional wrestling, mathematical theory, drugs, and now ballet. The opening scene shows a ballerina, illuminated with a single overhung spotlight amidst a featureless blackness, dancing the overture of Swan Lake. Immediately, I almost fell in love with Nina, ballet, the music, and of course, the film itself. This notion did not change throughout Black Swan, which is why I have no reservations with the first paragraph above.