Black Swan; The Beauty is within the Beast

Rating: 6/10 (22 February 2011)

Black Swan (2010) immediately grabs us with the binary opposition of black vs. white: black swan vs. white swan. The theme of duality comes to mind not unlike the bestial references present in Stevenson's classic The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde But I would like to argue that the intense sexual references in Black Swan is somehow misplaced among this "frigid" white female. Natalie Portman is fantastic in her portrayal of not just the aspiring ballerina but of the white swan herself. As her instructor and borderline molester puts it; it is the black swan that she needs to discover; it is this role where she needs to learn to let go. But at what cost? Not unlike Robert Zemeckis' production of What Lies Beneath (2000) and Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), the theme of water is present throughout. It is the water which holds danger with connotations of the horror/thriller genres. Portman's protagonist, at one stage in the film, discovers an old wooden plank; of some descript, in order to lock herself in her mothers' bathroom. At 28 years of age, this girl still lives with her mother and, to a certain extent, enjoys her mothers' mollycoddling; seeing this is a sign of affection. As she starts to hallucinate, she swiftly locks her mothers love out. We can also extend this theme of 'coming of age' further; even though the character Nina Sayers perhaps is a bit of a late developer in this regard.
The theme of the single obsessive parent (Erica Sayers) used to practise ballet and due to no husband or partner in sight, she chooses to pour all her energy into her daughter. In doing so, she is preventing Nina from growing up and ultimately stopping the physical and physiological growth process. We can either blame, therefore, Nina's mother for her eerie hallucinations, which usually involves images of self-harm or harm to others, or her complicated friendship with her fellow ballerina Lily.
Lily represents youth revolt incarnate; she entices Nina to come out for a "drink," the night before the show (much to Nina's mothers' disapproval). Nina happily escapes and ends up welcoming the recreational use of narcotics, heavy liqueur and fornication. The latter is portrayed as a deliberately anomaly as Nina remains unsure if she had a sexual encounter with Lily or an unnamed male from a local club.
One feels sympathy for Nina as she is taken advantage of not just by her instructor Thomas Leroy (exquisitely executed by actor Vincent Cassel) but by Lily as well. Many are drawn to her sexually and Nina responds uncertainly but regrettably reciprocates their advances out of both confusion and uniformity. It's almost as if the audience sees Nina's virginal innocence drain away as she starts to experiment in masturbation, homosexuality and oral sex. All the time the dominator is pushing her to perform just as Leroy is pushing her to perform on stage. He verbally assaults her to get results leaving Nina emotionally torn and upset.
It seems slightly odd that although Nina has been dancing at the ballet studio for the last "four years," accordingly to her instructor, she has developed zero social bonds with the other ballerinas and constantly spends most of her time either reflecting in isolation or being taken advantage of by both male and female onlookers.
At the start of the film, Leroy both explains the basic narrative of the much loved ballet Swan Lake and picks out his favourites for his new show at the same time. It is a tale of love where the temptress, a black swan, steals the white swan's love and ultimately commits suicide. Portman's protagonist later explains to an interested, yet harmless, male admirer that this is beautiful tale of love. The director of Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky, takes the narrative of Swan Lake further, behind this theatre curtain of pain and deceit by exploring the idea that Nina carries out her own version of Swan Lake in her life. She will stop at nothing when exploring her infatuation with Leroy or through her role as the Swan Princess on stage. Whether Nina is causing harm to others or herself is left ambiguous by Aronofsky until his Shakespearean tragic finale.
Not unlike Shakespeare's Ophelia from Hamlet, Nina not only hallucinates, but like Lady Macbeth, starts to realise that her plan to reach the top has damaging psychological and physiological effects on both herself a and others. The director makes this unclear as to how much Nina's actions of violence are fact or fiction. For example, at the point of the explicit theatrical dual split between white and black swan Nina thinks she sees Lily in her dressing room and struggles with her on the floor. Symbolically, the mirror shatters and she attempts to stab Nina in several places with a shard of glass.
Unlike Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Nina is exploring womanhood from an almost post-menstrual level whereas Alice is just discovering the responsibilities of female adulthood. Carroll draws us to the blood red roses in the Queen's garden as Aronofsky asks us to revisit Nina's body which is a temple under self-destruct without her conscious realisation until the end.
Like Brecht, Aronofsky wishes to marry the two art forms of film and theatre but we are left with a bitter aftertaste by questioning what is fiction and what is really reality in this stage of deception and duplicity?