"Black Swan' (3rd review)

Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan begins as a smart, tough-minded look at ambition in the Big City, as dancer Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) competes to be prima ballerina at the New York City Ballet. Hovering in the background is a stereotypic stage mom (Barbara Hershey), who has programmed Nina to fulfill her own frustrated ambitions; a leering, sneering director, Tony (Vincent Cassel), whose drill-sergeant style is just this side of sadism; the deposed ballerina, Beth (Winona Ryder), who all but hexes her successor; and, not least, an insinuating rival with an instinct for the jugular (Lily, played by Mila Kunis).

All of this is a little over the top from the beginning, and Aronofsky's claustrophobic sets and slasher-style cutting seem more adapted to a high-end horror flick. But the edgy style and swift strokes of characterization carry the film for a while.

Tony is looking to cast his principal for Swan Lake, which calls for a dancer who can project both erotic innocence and evil. Nina possesses an ample stock of the former as well as the impeccable technique to support it, but not, as Tony tells her, the latter. Lily is savvy and suggestive as the alter ego Black Swan, but purity and innocence isn't her forte. If only the strengths of the two dancers could be combined. . .

The heart of the film concerns the slippery relationship between Nina and Lily, as each seeks to exploit the other. Lily seems to know just what she's about; she can't copy Nina's freshness or compete with her technique (Portman seems a credible ballerina, but Kunis's moves are hardly competent for a Broadway chorister), but she can undermine her. Nina, for her part, hopes that a taste of wickedness will bring out her inner Black Swan.

Menstrual mysteries

Lily appears to be the seductress in this duet, but Nina wants something deeper: to incorporate her rival's aggressiveness and panache, and even a bit of her steely sluttishness. This isn't immediately apparent, because the point of view and inner consciousness throughout is Nina's, and her deeply repressed, vacuous-seeming personality— half-devoured by her mother and half-exposed to Lily's wiles— seems ripe to be swallowed whole.

Nina's vulnerability is manifest in the mysterious cuts, rashes and assorted effusions of blood to which she seems subject. Some of these are self-inflicted (she scratches), but others, mysterious and alarming (seepage from under fingernails and toenails; hemorrhaging through the mouth and nose), appear without apparent cause. At a certain point, these episodes begin to seem not merely symbolic but actually fantastic, and the blood-taint (for that is what it apparently is, a misogyny on Aronofsky's part that seems born of menstrual associations) spreads to others.

Beth, after attempting suicide, stabs herself horribly in the face; Lily, pushed into a full-length mirror by Nina, apparently bleeds to death. What of all this is meant to be real? Nina dances after "murdering" Lily, only to discover both the body and its blood vanished from her dressing room, and herself cut instead. At the end of a brilliant performance, she lies motionless, her White Swan's costume soaked in blood.

Beyond fantasy

Countless films today blur the line between fantasy and reality— a consequence, no doubt, of the new cyberworld that offers us an endless succession of simulacra. This phenomenon draws in turn upon our vestigial horror of ghosts and apparitions, and so leads back to the most atavistic realms of human consciousness. Fair enough, I suppose— though a little goes a long way for this viewer.

But that's not what's going on here. Aronofsky seems to be cutting up his principal character little by little until the final bloodbath, while simultaneously suggesting that she herself is a vampire underneath, with the climactic dance sequence of the Black Swan— Nina's premiere and swan song itself— offering an image of the eternal feminine as a glittering and deadly raptor.

From the Chainsaw Massacre genre to Hitchcock thrillers, plenty of directors have served up their misogynistic fantasies on-screen. Aronofsky draws us into his on the false pretext of telling a more or less realistic story of high-stakes ambition and intrigue, and bringing back just enough of it to keep us hooked as he unloads the gore.

Graphic masturbation

Is Nina/Lily really a single personality? Two? Many? Do one or both of them die at the end? Is anyone really present at all? As the whole fantasy comes crashing down with the final curtain, can anyone care?

Unresolved ambiguity is one thing. Trying to have it both ways while turning the most civilized of art forms into an occasion for Grand Guignol is another.

Under the circumstances, it's difficult to critique the acting. Natalie Portman survives a camera that paws all over her, as well as a graphic masturbation scene. Vincent Cassel, whose character is the only one with a more or less credible persona throughout, is a convincing martinet. Winona Ryder, who would probably have played Nina 15 years ago, makes what she can of the dethroned Beth. Barbara Hershey does likewise with a stage mom out of Rosemary's Baby.

But there is ultimately no redemption for this film. It's tricky, dishonest and finally repellent: a theft of two hours.♦


To read another review by Jane Biberman, click here.
To read another review by Janet Anderson, click here.
To read a response, click here.