BLACK SWAN Private Dancer

Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder, Barbara Hershey

It makes perfect sense that Darren Aronofsky, (The Wrestler, Requiem For A Dream), one of the finest of the current crop of American directors, would make a film about the price of perfection. As an artist, there’s no doubt that it’s something that he must struggle with; the personal sacrifices necessary to attain greatness. In the character of Nina (Portman), a driven ballerina desperate to land the lead role in a production of Swan Lake, he has the perfect vehicle with which to explore how the sublimation of the personality in the service of art can have terrible, even damning consequences.

It’s heady stuff, and Portman excels in a role that is not only central to the film, in many ways it is the film. As the story progresses and Nina’s rivalry with new dancer Lily (Kunis) progresses, it becomes apparent that much of the film is subjective, taking place within Nina’s fragile and increasingly damaged mind. Exactly how much is never quite made clear, but as hallucination mounts on hallucination, and the film becomes more and more surreal we come to understand that what are seeing is the self-destruction of a mind from the inside.

It’s the relationship between Nina and Lily that drives the film, and though we might expect great acting from Portman by this stage of the game, it’s Kunis who really surprises with her confident, provocative performance. She is the black to Portman’s white: Lily is bold where Nina is withdrawn, brazen in her sexuality while Nina is almost frigid, and as the film progresses the question arises as to whether Lily is a real person at all, or the personification of Nina’s hidden desires and hungers, conjured up by her fracturing psyche.

Aronofsky directs with the assured technical mastery we’ve come to expect from him, giving the proceedings a dark and glossy sheen that perfectly heightens the troubling, unsettling subject matter. The whole film has a strange and off-kilter mood that grows and grows until, by the time the credits roll, we have followed Nina so far down the rabbit hole it feels like we, too, are succumbing to her madness and despair. It’s an exhilarating film, but also an incredibly draining one that leaves the audience numb with emotional exhaustion. Make no mistake; although set in the world of professional dance, Black Swan is a horror movie, in much the same way that Requiem For A Dream is a horror movie, and with a similar psychological toll on the viewer.

To say anything more would be a disservice. This is, quite simply, one of the best films of the year, cementing Aronofsky’s place in the filmmaking firmament. Delirious, demented, haunting and harrowing, filled with terrors both physical and psychological, Black Swan is a nigh-on perfect cinematic experience, an instant classic that will be talked about for years to come. See it.

_TRAVIS JOHNSON