Dauntingly mesmerizing

Rating: 9/10 (10 October 2012)

The film was the most sought after at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals. Later, Natalie Portman won the Oscar Best Actress for the film. I loved Natalie Portman in Brothers and so I watched this film with lot of expectations.
The film gives no space for rest. The screenplay and editing are watertight and the proceedings are damn interesting. It doesn't allow you to look away from the film even for a single second. The dance sequences towards the end, that contribute a lot to the storyline, are finely choreographed. I have never seen much of ballet, so the film was a different experience for me.
The production design heavily uses black and white owing to the film's theme. The camera lingers a lot around Natalie as she walks around the corridors and dances in the theater. Editing is superb. The film never lets any scene get heavy and cuts through unapologetically.
Black Swan is a psychological thriller that deals with an aspiring ballet dancer who has to portray two roles quite opposite to each other. While she is extremely good with the positive one (White Swan), she can't carry off the negative Black Swan effectively according to the director. Lily (Mila Kunis) is a perfect alternative for the Black Swan but Natalie fights through to acquire both the roles. In an effort to accomplish both the roles effectively, she gets deeply involved with the character of Black Swan. She starts hallucinating and what we witness is a roller-coaster of marvelous scenes that confuse, enchant and mesmerize.
Ballet is depicted in the film as an art which, to perform efficiently, requires self torture. Nina (Natalie) suffers from rashes and cramps at many points in the film, although the rashes turn out to be something else that I won't reveal. The sequences with Mila Kunis are arguably the best in the film. Kunis turns out to be the surprise package and makes her character believable. She makes a late entry and dominates with her strong screen presence and her very down to earth personality. The complete club sequence and the next one at Nina's house come across totally unexpected.
Natalie Portam is the star of the show. She gives a very humane performance that we empathize with right from frame 1. She may not have done the dances herself (nobody can), but she gives a unique dimension to her character that makes her aim and struggle more believable. She gradually transforms from the naive, easy going White Swan to the cunning, ambitious, experienced Black Swan. The murder scene in the second half is exemplary, mainly because of the wonderful transformation of Natalie. The next ballet scene where she turns graphically into a swan is the best dance sequence in the film and the brilliant camera work by Matthew Libatique makes the scene more accomplishing.
Vincent Cassel is in terrific form as the dance director who is always unsatisfied with Nina's dancing abilities. He attracts hatred every time he comes, but one cannot deny that he has a positive side too. Daren Aronofsky has a novel script at hand and makes full use of it. The film is not without blemishes, but it rides high on the superb direction. Aronofsky maintains an eerie atmosphere, although, the film is not of horror genre. The continual use of Tchaikovsky's score, which is loud at times, electrifies the sequences, more towards the second half.
Black Swan is an awe-inspiring experience in short! 9.5/10