Neither Fish Nor Fowl

Rating: 6/10 (15 June 2014)

Black Swan is brilliantly directed and impeccably acted. But beyond that, I'm not sure how impressed we should be. It uses masterful technique to sell shallow and possibly fallacious insights.
On a dramatic level, the film shows us a feeble, repressed, self-destructive person, who - despite being offered an unimaginable opportunity - spends most of the running time whining, panicking, or blubbering. This may be a valid basis for a story (albeit a dreary one), but it offers very little in the way of novelty or nuance. There are no detours in Nina's character arc. You can fill in the ending of the film after watching the first five minutes.
Black Swan also misrepresents the creative process. The 'obsessive, self-destructive ballerina' is a tired cliché, which didn't ring true in The Red Shoes, and doesn't hold up any better here. Ballet, like any art, is NOT produced by mystically 'losing yourself.' It's created through long hours of intense, tightly-focused and highly-skilled effort. In other words: boring WORK. 'Talent' is 90% perspiration; obsession and psychosis are entirely optional. (And not particularly common.)
Aronofsky does a beautiful job of presenting Nina's inner journey in visual, symbolic terms. But that journey is neither pleasant nor particularly instructive. Nina's failing is ultimately no more than a lack of commitment.