ASSESSMENT OF THE MOVIE BLACK SWAN

The movie tackles about the insecurities and scuffles of a ballerina named Nina who aims to have complete control to be perfect. It received five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. Black Swan is rated R for strong sexual content, disturbing violent images, language and some drug use.  

FRIGHTENING HARM

Academy Award nominee entitled “Black Swan”, directed by Darren Aronofsky, is a film in a league of its own. Intensified in every sense, the movie offers its audience with an amusing feast of colour, music, sex, violence and the elegance of ballet. 

Natalie Portman who won in the recently concluded Academy Awards as Actress in her Leading Role in Black Swan as Nina was astounding. The character-driven portrayal of Nina consistently being gloomy is both charming and terrifying in this story of a woman’s search for the dark side of art and of life in battling her own self’s struggles.

THE BLACK SWAN

Nina (Natalie Portman) is a young dancer with a top ballet company in New York City has devoted her entire life in dancing, working long days of practicing in their home at night. She is determined to have complete control, to be perfect. Nina’s mother, played with beautiful, rigid sadness by Barbara Hershey, shares her daughter’s obsession, seeking to ease her regret over abandoning her own artistic career as a painter by riding on Nina’s achievement. It is against the context that Nina is awarded the much desired part of the Swan Queen in Swan Lake. Her director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), wants Nina to play both the white and black swans and encourages her to release her dark side for the role. Nina begins to do so, but as her dancing improves, the rest of her life including her mind begins to unravel.

THE THRILL OF DARKNESS 

‘Black Swan’ is an emotional battle, sensually thrilling and an exhausting experience. From the moment the film begins, the audience is completely immersed in Nina’s world which is so oppressive. The camera angles follow every step of Nina like a stalker. Seeing the world from Nina’s perspective; experience her psychosis as if it is our own. The diversion between what is real and what is imaginary becomes increasingly distorted as the film progresses. And Nina’s hallucinations are so intense, it made even more frightening because of the contrary to her previous innocent world, filled with fluffy-pink bedspreads and teddy bears. There is a great sense of darkness creeping through the surface of Nina’s life. 

Majority of the set in the film is cloying and dim, including the grey boxed-in subway, Nina’s dark apartment and her mother’s bedroom that is filled with haunting self-portraits. There is a deep comparison in every aspect, the dark vs. the light, the black and the white swan, Nina and Lily (Mila Kunis) a dancer from San Francisco who becomes Nina’s substitute. 

At times the imagery feels a little heavier, the musical scoring have an intense effect being in light mood makes the story a little melodramatic. Abrupt scenes and cuts are also noticeable in some parts of the movie but most of the sensual shots were done in an artistic and very imaginative manner.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE THEMES

The movie is pact with numerous themes, being the most noticeable, one being the relationship between light and darkness. Nina is encouraged to release her dark side, which in the end destroys her. There is an interesting idea that lies beneath the link between art and chaos. Being a sacrificial lamb of one’s stability, mental health and happiness to become truly artistic? The character of Nina in the movie depicts to lose control of the balance, seeing her world in different categories that is too defined and too idealistic. Perhaps if she had been able to balance both it will come to the realization that there is a little bit of light and dark in everyone and she would have survived to dance another day.