The newest film from Darren Aronofsky is a remarkable vision almost undone by a bit of indulgence.
Lusting for greatness and in some ways achieving it, Black Swan could be director Darren Aronofsky’s most realized work yet. A vehicle for the talents of Natalie Portman, who plays Nina, a seemingly childlike ballerina determined to perfectly embody the duality of the Black and White Swan in a production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, the film is thrilling, provocative and, at times, painfully beautiful. And in an industry where thrillers lack imagination and horror films wallow in violence, it returns those genres to their rightful origins, evoking Hitchcock and his Freudian notions.
The most prominent of these is the doppelganger, which Hitchcock played with frequently, most notably in Vertigo and Strangers on a Train. Here, the concept is used effectively in both the story and visuals. When Nina is told she must embrace the amoral nature of the Black Swan, she finds her dissolute self through her mirror images: Beth Macintyre, the washed-up lead whom she replaces (Winona Ryder) and Lily, her seductive rival (Mila Kunis), as well as her overprotective mother, Erica (Barbara Hershey). These three women, with their dark hair and dark clothing, contrast with Nina, who is seen in white and pink throughout the film, and as the striving heroine unravels her inner demons, she sees herself physically projected onto them.
Aronofsky—who also directed the visually stunning Requiem for a Dream and The Wrestler—takes full advantage of these moments in terms of visuals. We see who we believe is Nina but soon realize it’s just Lily, and likewise. The filmmaker makes the transformations uncanny, distorting reality for us as he does the same for Nina, whose depraved obsession sends her in a downward spiral of psychological disorientation. Aronofsky also adds to the visual perplexities surrounding Nina and her foils with the brilliant use of mirrors; there are very few scenes without them. From an early moment where an enemy writes “whore” with red lipstick—referring to Nina—on a bathroom mirror, to reflections on her bath water, the moving images reveal a monster that she is unleashing.
Because of this descent and the straightforward symbolism of black and white, Nina’s story will undoubtedly be mistaken as a loss of innocence. But, despite trivializing morality, Aronofsky makes clear that’s not the case, proving to have a deeper understanding of human depravity than that. We know, because of her deadly ambition and past experiences with self-mutilation, that Nina is not by any means innocent or clean. She, despite her naivete, is somehow already wicked.
Black Swan is about more than just the immorality of evil, though, and to conclude with that would undermine the depths of it. Continuing his exploration into the nature of humankind, Aronofsky is, moreover, interested in the human need for acceptance and love. This theme can be understood in the film’s relationship to the story of Swan Lake, in which a princess realizes she will never be loved by a prince. Offering a different perspective, it plays Nina as the victim, as a flawed young woman who wants nothing more than to please her mother and director (Vincent Cassel), and as someone who is willing to endure physical pain for the sake of it, somewhat justifying her darkness. Aronofsky deserves recognition for his insight into human nature, as he insists we are complex beings pitting between two selves.
But he ultimately leans toward the tainted side of humanity and, like Kubrick did in A Clockwork Orange, goes too far to show perversion. While it plays out mostly in the morally ambiguous finale, there are several sequences before it that seem gratuitous if not pornographic, like Nina masturbating as an assignment from her director. The most unsettling moment, however, is a lesbian sex scene between her and Lily. Not only is it excessively long and graphic, but it serves no purpose beyond depicting Nina’s corruption, verifying it as an excuse for Aronofsky to exploit his attractive female characters and seduce his audience.
David Lynch covered similar territory in his 2001 masterpiece, Mulholland Drive, a film Aronofsky clearly borrows from to a great degree, with a girl-on-girl experience between Naomi Watts and Laura Harring. But whereas the scene in Black Swan appears tasteless, that scene in Mulholland Drive—besides being creepy and unseductive—gives us a deeper understanding of the protagonist and, to an extent, teaches us a moral lesson.
Although offensive and distracting, Aronofsky’s erotic indulgence, nevertheless, doesn’t ruin his movie entirely, and if there’s a saving grace, it’s definitely Portman. As skinny, frail and demented as she has ever been, the young actress gives her strongest performance to date. She is a convincing psychopath and ballerina—mastering all the eloquent moves and posture—with the ability to induce sympathy in spite of her twisted selfishness. If, in the end, Nina reaches the perfection she so desperately longs for as the Swan Princess, it’s reasonable to say that Portman comes somewhere close portraying her. Hershey is a standout, as well, playing Nina’s cringing mother. The veteran performer doesn’t just wholly look the part, but she also performs in a way that underscores Portman’s emotion and intensity.
With Portman as his shimmering anchor, Aronofsky has unmistakably created something grand, something completely chilling. Proven by all his films, he just doesn’t know how to make an uncomplicated picture, and even with some inevitable pretentiousness and, in this case, some over-the-top sexuality, that’s a compliment.
David Roark is a film critic
for RELEVANT and Dallas Morning News. Check out his blog and follow him on Twitter.
