Dark. Uncomfortable. Unrelenting. Amazing.

Rating: 9/10 (28 January 2011)

"I felt it. Perfect. It was perfect."
Some directors make movies that are "experiences". Darren Aronofsky is one of those directors.
Black Swan is a combination of the unbearable descent into hallucinatory madness featured in Requiem for a Dream, and the unflinching pain and physical drive to be one thing and one thing only, as seen in The Wrestler (and those just happen to be my two favorite Aronofsky movies). The marriage of those two elements is a fascinating movie that's frightening, uncomfortable, and tries its hardest to make it difficult for you to keep your eyes on the screen, even as you're riveted by what you see.
Portman is amazing. The camera is almost always tight on her, just as the pressure of her mother, her ballet director, and her rivals is always pressed oppressively close against her. This is not the story of a normal woman coming unraveled. Nina is frayed from the first moment we meet her, both physically and mentally.
I've never been a massive Portman fan, but I always thought that she was a nice enough actress. Here, she impresses with not only her ballet skills, but her ability to communicate fear, frustration, obsession, and psychosis.
Mila Kunis puts in another solid performance in the string of good movies that's she's been in the last few years. She's simultaneously threatening and endearing. Vincent Cassel is suffocating and terrifying (from Nina's point of view, which is also our point of view) as the ballet director. Barbara Hershey is overbearing and disturbingly motherly, as Nina's mom, and puts perhaps the greatest burden of stress on Nina's shoulders.
Black Swan feels like an Aronofsky film, through and through. His fingerprints are all over it. His camera style, the way he brings the audience in and makes them feel a part of the character, and experience in a way what the character is experiencing. This is not a movie for everyone. It's horror, but a psychological kind of horror that puts us directly into the fractured, overwhelmed, frustrated mind of a person.
After only one viewing, Black Swan hasn't quite replaced The Wrestler as my favorite Aronofsky movie. But, it is clearly his most interesting film by far, as well as his most artistic and his most technically spectacular.
Black Swan crawled under my skin, and I can't wait to see it again.