I love the cinema. For a couple of hours or so I can lose myself in another world, one that fully engages my senses and yet at the same time leaves me a curious bystander to the action. Then, when the final credits roll and normality returns, I want to feel touched and changed by the experience.
That’s what I want but how often does a film match the expectation? Let me tell you about one that does.
Nina Sayers yearns to play Swan Queen in her company’s new production of Swan Lake following the forced retirement of Beth, the prima ballerina. The part demands she takes on two completely different roles. As the technically correct and innocent White Swan she is ideal, but the freedom and sensuality to successfully portray Black Swan is lacking.
As we join the film there are already signs that Nina is under pressure. Cracks in her mental stability are appearing as desire for the part and continual pushing by her domineering mother, herself a former failed ballerina, take effect. The pressure increases as ballet director, Thomas Leroy, makes clear her performance as Black Swan is too frigid. And when Lily joins the company displaying all the emotion and abandon that Nina seems to lack, competition for the role intensifies .
Nina eventually wins the coveted role following a physical encounter with the director that shows, after all, she does possess the inner passion to play Black Swan. But in trying to embrace the dark side Nina begins to fall apart.
The film becomes a psychological study of Nina’s disintegration told in a series of delusions, hallucinations and outbreaks of paranoia. At times it is difficult to know what is real and what is illusion. These scenes are graphically explicit and extremely disturbing in their depiction of a repressed girl confronting a new and frightening world.
The lengthy climax to the film takes place on opening night. Nina awakes from resting to discover she has been locked in her bedroom by her mother who has informed the company she is too ill to perform. In a violent confrontation Nina escapes, makes her way to the theatre in time to claim her role that Lily was preparing to assume. All is well until a combination of bright lights and hallucination cause her to falter and she is dropped by the Prince.
Rushing to her dressing room in distress at the end of the Act she finds Lily there, now dressed in the understudy’s Black Swan costume. Lily announces that as Nina is clearly ill she will take over the role of Black Swan. Lily then transforms into an image of Nina. The two Ninas wrestle for control. In the course of their fight a mirror is broken. With a shard of glass Nina stabs her duplicate, killing her. Reason returns and Nina recognises it is Lily she has killed, hides the body and returns to the stage.
Now she can dance with all the passion, freedom and sensuality that has been missing. In a thrilling sequence Nina’s arms become huge black feathered wings and as she spins round and round her metamorphosis is complete, she is Black Swan. The audience give her a standing ovation. Back in the dressing room there is a knock at the door and it is Lily come to congratulate her on her performance.
The fight was just an hallucination but the mirror remains broken and Nina realises she stabbed herself and not Lily. Despite her wound Nina returns once more to the stage for the final act and again dances with passion and belief. In the ballet’s final death scene she throws herself from a cliff . As she lays on the safety mattress, Lily and the other dancers see, with horror, the spreading stain of her wound. For Nina though she has found contentment, a perfect performance. She continues to lie there, maybe dying, but finally at peace. And as the film draws to its close she whispers, ”I felt it. Perfect. I was perfect.”
The film is pretty near perfect too. Woven around Tchaikovsky’s emotive score, Darren Aronofsky, the director, has conceived a wonderful psychological thriller that hooks from the start and to its final tragic ending never lets go. With a tight running time there is not a single wasted moment in a film that is never comfortable but forbids you to look away.
Mila Kunis is an unqualified success as Lily, capturing the darker and uninhibited nature of her character. Vincent Cassell stars as the driven and ruthless Thomas Leroy whilst Barbara Hershey is superb as Nina’s overbearing but protective mother. And there is a compelling cameo from Winona Ryder as the deposed and distraught Beth.
But the film belongs to Natalie Portman, truly mesmerising as Nina in a performance that leaves the audience exhausted yet exhilarated at the same time. After twelve months of rigorous and painful training she more than convinces as the prima ballerina losing hold of her sanity. Recognition of her remarkable acting came last Sunday with the award of Best Actress at the BAFTAs and if justice is to be done she will collect a deserved Oscar in little over a week’s time.
February 2011
© 2011, Phil. All rights reserved.
