If there's one thing I've learned from Darren Aronofsky's last two films, it's that jobs that require you to wear leotards are really hard work. For both Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler" and Natalie Portman in Aronofsky's new film, "Black Swan" (opening today in 18 theaters and moving into wider release next weekend), the elasticized second skins they wear seems to be the only thing holding them together.
Natalie Portman's Nina is a ballerina whose face is a near-frozen rictus of fear. Raised by an infantalizing stage mother (played by Barbara Hershey), Nina lives in a girly dream world turned nightmare, keep in a pink-walled uterus of a room, haunted to sleep by her music box (which plays Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake," of course) and stared down by an army of stuffed animals.
Nina is a lonely practitioner of the most sadomasochistic of the arts. To say her life revolves around the ballet is wrong; without the ballet, she would have no existence at all.
The closed, competitive world of the corps has left the paranoid Nina with only rivals. The arrival of a new dancer from San Francisco (Mila Kunis) is enough to cause Nina to fall off her toes, mid-audition.
Despite the justifiable doubts of Tomas, the director (the always dangerous French actor, Vincent Cassel), as to whether Nina has what it takes to play both the White (chaste) and the Black (seductress) Swan, he awards her the role of the Swan Queen to which she so nervously aspires.
Her big break quickly turns into her Big Break.
Yes, there are parts of the film that are melodramatic and over-the-top, but the immersion in the specifics of this world (such as when the camera joins the dances) is so complete, that I just went with it (especially when the music took over -- I'll never hear it quite the same way again). Performances are all good with the exception of Winona Ryder as the aging prima ballerina being given the boot -- she was an over-the-top character I wasn't buying. But Natalie Portman was riveting -- just the right classic look for this character (but then you look around at the rest of the corps and they are all little bun-wearing, gamine beauties. Ain't life unfair sometimes?).
Nina's total commitment to her role is mesmerizing; to find her inner Black Swan comes with a price, and like the White Swan, her release is final.
Dang. I don't know why, but I wanted you to hate it. Glad you didn't though, really!
ReplyDelete"… stared down by an army of stuffed animals."
ReplyDeleteThat has an all-too-familiar ring.