Black Swan

While looking over Darren Aronofsky's work, there is always a certain psychodrama element at work be it the remarkable 'Requiem for a Dream' or the underrated 'The Fountain'. He seems to be at his best whilst dealing with the bleak side of human nature. Certainly not Kubrick-esque but arguably the closest modern cinema can get to him. And that is in itself an achievement of staggeringly epic proportions.

In 'Black Swan', Aronofsky does not disappoint us. A film about the ballet, rather more the ballerinas, it is a look at two proverbial white and black characters. Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) and Lily (Mila Kunis) play two ballet dancers in a production of 'Swan Lake' helmed by Thomas Leroy (Vince Cassel).The girls are polar opposites in the extreme with Nina's dainty ways and inherent goodness contrasting with the brash and almost libertine Lily. The concept of 'Swan Lake' where there is a black swan (evil) and a white swan (good) is central to the story. Nina is chosen to play the Swan, yet she finds it hard to display an evil side. Enter Lily, who is the archetypal Black Swan. There isn't much of a story line, just a metamorphosis of Nina's character into one resembling that of Lily's or rather White Swan to Black Swan.

Nina's character is formulaic, almost. She is as pure as a flower, a girl who's probably never been with a man. Looked after by her mother, Erica (Barbara Hershey) who was a dancer herself but put all her energies into making her daughter what she could not be. Her journey or rather metamorphosis is visceral in the extreme. Everything she does somehow filters back to her sexual repression. It could be argued that sex is but one of the fundamental choices that humans make, or rather even have the freedom to make. And when this choice isn't even an option it just adds to the mental drudgery of a too-pure-to-be-true experience. Nina's mental problems are quite possibly just an offshoot of all her desires being repressed or told off. While it is not clear that being good is her defining trait, it is more likely her mother's raising of her impregnated her against being a wee bit bad.

It is here that Aronofsky displays a control of his characters so intimate that one cannot help but marvel at his sheer brilliance. The major gripe with most people who prefer books over movies is that emotions cannot be transmitted to the screen whereas within a book, you can be inside the character's head. This is one of those rare films where you can actually enter Nina's mind space and observe how Lily causes it to disintegrate amidst chaos. Lily's character is a fascinating journey into another extreme. She is liberated and at ease with her own sexuality, a modern woman aware of the power she commands just by being her. Her conversations with Nina are indeed particularly interesting as she introduces her to a world unlike her fairyland. This different world cannot help but seduce Nina. If there's one constant in humankind from the Adam & Eve days, it is the overwhelming temptation of being bad. Nina’s mental battles to resist change are handled well and offer an insightful portrait of the mental tussle that she undergoes.

Ballet as a medium is well chosen. Simply because, it is inherently transcendental in nature. The dancers transcend their current selves in a way, to reach the graceful heights and play characters expressed only through their bodies. Natalie Portman gives a cracking performance and her perfection is scarcely believable at times. Lily is at complete ease and you feel that the role was tailor made for Mila Kunis. The ballet performances are brilliant and especially the actors who've learnt ballet just for their roles are scintillating.Indeed when Nina does her Black Swan act,we break into heartfelt applause.

The strange thing about this film was that there was no normal 'grey' character; all the characters were extremes in their own ways from the darkness of Lily and Thomas Leroy to the light of Nina and her mother. What this leads to is removal of any empathy with the audience, as there is simply no connect with any of the characters. So, while you feel horrified at what Nina is going through, you never really feel anything more than just pity at her thrill-less existence. Black Swan is an exploration into the foundations of human character and a very insightful look at why we are what we are. One wonders though, if only Nina had more sex then she probably wouldn't have had to go through all this.