A True Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (5 April 2011)

Late in the afternoon, with the rain and wind outside, I found myself sitting stories above Piazza Strozzi in a comfortable armchair dancing the ballet with Natalie Portman. Such is the dynamic of Darren Aronofsky's 2010 psychological thriller Black Swan.
The film explores the persona of Nina Sayers (Portman), a young ballet dancer on the New York City stage, competing for a part in her company's production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. Nina struggles to gain acceptance from her peers until she is chosen by director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) to dance the lead role. In training for the part, Nina falls victim to Thomas' ambiguous demands and sexual advances, as he implores her to become not just the innocent white swan, which her natural naivety emanates, but the sinister black swan; a threatening alter ego necessary for the role.
A preexisting mental illness emerges in full force when Nina learns to dance the black swan and forgets how to live her own innocent life. As the boundary between Tchaikovsky's tragedy and Nina's reality disappears her fate dwindles in the hands of the production. With the crowd fixed attentively, and the orchestra rumbling, the final act brings the black swan closer and closer to her own self inflicted death.
A true art film, Aronofsky presents a number of haunting motifs in his use of mirrors, doppelgangers and in the way Thomas seems to verbally narrate Nina's story, effectively rending him the director not just of her ballet, but of her life. The 16mm hand-held camera employed by Aronofsky and cinematographer Matthew Libatique gives the film a raw documentary quality, amplifying the realism and drama of Nina's inner struggle. In addition, the highly-mobile camera technique used in the performance sequences allows the audience to dance with the characters.
While praising this film for what it does effectively, I must also note it is doubtful one will desire to sit for a second viewing of Black Swan. The excess of "glass-in-flesh" gross-out horror makes Black Swan one of the most difficult films in recent years. Nonetheless, there is no excuse to skip this masterpiece by Darren Aronofsky, where the boundary between truth and torment is as blurred as the eyes of a ballerina in the bright spotlight of a New York City stage.