Black Swan

Watching a Darren Arenofsky film is seriously asking yourself, do I want to have an uncomfortable experience or not. Is it gonna be mind bending? Yes. Is it gonna be super weird? Yes. Is it totally worth it? That is a very hard question to answer.

Black Swan follows the story of a ballerina by the name of Nina (played by Natalie Portman). The story picks up just as the dance company is deciding who to pick as the new star ballerina and of course, Nina is vying for that spot, and she does get it to perform Swan Lake as the White and Black Swan.

I won’t pretend to know anything about ballet, but it is pretty clear that for these ballerinas, this star role is a big deal. And the whole movie is how this role slowly eats away at Nina in her obsession to be the best embody both the light and the dark sides of the part. At the start, Nina receives feedback that technically she's very good and perfect for the white swan part, but she lacks the passion and improvisation of the black swan.

The journey of course is colored in by supporting characters who affect Nina’s personal journey in very unique ways. One is the overbearing, kind of pervy dance company manager (played by Vincent Cassel). Then you have Nina’s over protective mother (played by Barbara Hershey) who seems to be living vicariously through Nina. You have the retiring star ballerina who Nina is replacing (played by Winona Ryder). And a rival dancer who Nina connects with on a very unique level (played by Mila Kunis).

On one hand, this is a story about the high stakes lifestyle of a female ballerina, dealing with competition, sexism, and personal ambition and insecurities. On the other hand, its Daren Arenofsky saying don’t believe what you’re watching because nothing you know is real and you’re gonna need to watch this film a couple times to really understand the message I’m trying to force across to you with all my symbolism and such.

I think the most entertaining part of the movie is when it gets a little spooky and you're not really clear what is real and what is in her head.

The movie plays tricks on the audience just as Nina's mind seems to be playing tricks on her and Natalie Portman does a great job facilitating the very uncomfortably visual transformation she seems to be going through to embrace this dark side when she starts off very naive and kind. She won a freaking Oscar for this film (in what seems like it was a weird year), but nonetheless, I think its definitely worth at least the nomination.

 I'm also kind of amazed how cerebral the plot became even though it was about a ballerina.

One thing I did enjoyed /hated was how familiar the cat-yness that occurs between these ballerinas. I did have a small stint in theater and I know how performing can affect people, even when its much lower stakes than the ones presented in this film. To these ballerinas, the performance is the most important thing and they understand the politics of it. It’s interesting seeing the ways in which those politics and back stabbing drama plays out in a subject that may not seem that important to me, but the movie is able to convey how important it is to women like Nina who are performing for that top slot. Furthermore the legacy emotions that go behind performing being a family business as well as the misogyny and sexism that we’ve come to be pretty familiar with in the Me Too era.

A notable performance other than Portman's is obviously Mila Kunis. I think Kunis is a good actress, I just think she needs roles that play to her strengths and this one really does.

One other thing that really works about both Kunis and Portman is that they do play their sides of the "Swan" coin pretty well. Kunis is the black swan and Portman is the white swan at the beginning of the film. The film does a really good job at fleshing out these roles and the two play off each other very well to show the eventual transformation of Nina.

One thing to note that is pretty impressive is Portman, Kunis, and all the other female actresses commitment to the role of a ballerina at the New York City Ballet Company. Not only are they ridiculously thin, they colored in the world they existed in pretty well and it made the environment perfect for some Arenofsky visual screw arounds.

I think as far as Arenofsky films go, this one is probably one of the more attainable one. His films like mother! and Noah take on more heady and cerebral almost spiritual topics. I'm sure you could draw something spiritual out of Black Swan, but I think the reason it had such an appeal in 2010 was because it was more akin to a psychological drama rather than a philosophical think piece. I imagine if you're a hardcore Arenofsky fan, this one doesn't have the same ooomph the other ones have, but its a little more mainstream.

Like most Arenofsky films, there are a lot of visuals in the film that are pretty disturbing and with all these thin women dancing around, I couldn't help but think one of their legs were going to snap. Its pretty obvious the film is not for the faint of heart.

I don't know if I'd call this a horror film and I know some of my friends who are hardcore horror fans would not call it a horror film, but like the last few films I've checked out, it's intellectual horror which is becoming one of my favorite genres ever. There are some jolts that might get ya if you're not expecting them, but I think it works for the film and the eerie unique visuals the story is using to be told.

Overall, Black Swan is another film that I've waited far too long to finally check out but every once in a while you gotta watch an Arenofsky film and then wait a year or so. The performances in the film, especially Portman and Kunis's are very good, and the visuals, though disturbing are really fun and spooky for this really cerebral inside look into a woman's psyche. I'm not sure I'd wanna re-watch this film, but thinking about the other Arenofsky films, I think I'd re-watch this one before any other films of his.

But those are my thoughts on Black Swan. What did you think? How has that movie aged in the 10 years since it came out? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!