Black Swan
A flawless, immersive experience, and one that hardcore aficionados of film will revel in.

Aronofsky’s last film The Wrestler studied the role of performance in the life of a has-been. His new release is a thematic companion piece to that film, and takes an ambitious young ballerina as its subject. Though very different arts, it transpires that wrestling and ballet have more in common than you might imagine, thanks to their uncompromising physical demands and high burn-out rate.

By depicting performances that push artists to their limits and asking his cast to do the same within their given roles, it seems that Aronfsky has earnt himself a high reputation amongst actors. Natalie Portman takes the part of Nina, an innocent but determined ballet dancer who craves the top job in her dance company – that of the White Swan in Swan Lake. Nina pushes her body to the limits to attain the physical condition that the role requires; meanwhile, in reality, Portman was doing exactly the same. She spent a year training for the role, suffered a series of injuries during it and performs a large proportion of her own stunts. As a result, her performance is extraordinarily heartfelt and realistic – a sure-fire Oscar contender.

Emotionally brittle Nina is skilled at playing the ingénue, but her lascivious director Thomas (Vincent Cassell) refuses to cast her in the duel lead part of the White and Black Swan until she has tapped into her darker, more fiery side. He plays her off against her looser-limbed, laidback rival for the role Lily (Mila Kunis) and persuades her to relinquish control of her suppressed sexuality. What with all the dancing and bitchy rivalry, the bare bones of the plot amusingly echoes that of Showgirls – but the final result could not be further from that cult ‘classic’.

Embracing her wild side proves to be distressing for a person as highly-strung as Nina. She lives at home with her obsessive, controlling mother and devotes her every waking moment to dancing, even as her toenails crack and her ligaments pop under the strain. As she attempts to let go of her need for control, she simultaneously loosens her mental grip on reality until paranoia and psychosis eventually set in.

It’s a gripping, sexually explicit performance, and Aronofsky’s minutely detailed special effects heighten the visual trickeries going on in Nina’s mind until you almost feel as though you are hallucinating along with her. At times, the intensity of what is happening onscreen is almost unwatchable: if you have a phobia of seeing nails pulled or in any way broken, then you may find Black Swan a touch sick-making. This is body horror at its finest. It’s no surprise to hear that Aronofsky cites David Cronenberg as an inspiration; Black Swan is a note perfect portrayal of both physical and mental disintegration, and could only have been conceived with reference to Cronenberg’s oeuvre.

Black Swan is not an easy film to watch. There is no let up – from the opening scene we are thrown into Nina’s already fragile state of mind, and things get progressively worse from that point onwards. There are brief moments of levity, but this is a draining story to follow and the ending is not uplifting. Still, this is all in keeping with Aronofsky’s general style: if you’re going to do something dark and depressing, make sure you do it well. And it pays off: as a psychological horror, Black Swan is flawless. It’s an immersive experience, and one that hardcore aficionados of film will revel in.

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