Black Swan

The pursuit of perfection is a gutsy goal for a performer, a director, and a movie to collectively attempt, but that lofty objective hasn't fazed Natalie Portman, Darren Aronofsky, and their combined masterwork Black Swan. Performer and director have joined forces to craft a deliriously dark and doubly damning portrait of a ballerina (Portman) driven by her destructive desire to achieve utter perfection on the stage. It's a story of dedication, of suffering, of sacrifice, and even of sizzling sexual release. Black Swan is never just one thing, even though it's completely controlled and formally focused.

Aronofsky loves to put his protagonists through the wringer (the characters in Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, and The Wrestler all have a pretty difficult time of it) and he tends to be quite generous to his lead performers by giving them lots to work with, but he's never given his movie over to an actor so confidently and trustingly than he does here. This is, without doubt, Natalie Portman's movie and she takes the onscreen intensity from a simmer to a boil to an absolute eruption over the course of her character's fully developed arc.

She commands the camera whether she's pirouetting in the ballet studio or sharing an uncomfortably cold, but almost heartfelt moment with her mother (Barbara Hershey, devastating in the role). Hershey's character is still aching from the sacrifice she made years ago when she gave up dancing to be a mother to Portman's sweet, soft-spoken Nina. Hershey tangos with the psychological ambiguity of her character as she lives vicariously through her daughter and demands nothing less than absolute commitment. Is she pushing her daughter too far, too hard? Or is she providing the exact rigid restrictions required of Nina to achieve her ambitious goal?

The movie explores these questions with vicious intent and it’s amazing that Hershey makes such an intriguing impression given how entirely Portman envelopes the whole picture. The rest of the cast is a delight, with supporting players Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, and even Winona Ryder (great to see her again!) all delivering excellent work, but it is Portman who is always front and centre. From the opening shot to the closing one, Portman is in in the frame for almost every single moment. She dominates the narrative, becoming one with the material and making Nina’s journey one of the most brilliantly conceived and executed portraits of greatness achieved in a very long time.

One of the most surprising and exciting aspects of Nina's story is how her plunge into darkness stems from a relatively obvious conceit and yet soon becomes something so overwhelmingly breathtaking and harrowing all at once. When Nina is selected to be the lead in her company's season opening production of Swan Lake, she views the opportunity as her big break and pushes harder than ever to prepare for the performance of a lifetime. As the movie progresses, her story begins to parallel that of the show, with Nina representing the White Swan, who is being increasingly terrorized by the Black Swan.

Since Nina plays both roles in the production, she of course adopts both roles in real life (herself and her own worst enemy) as the pressure begins to mount. But Black Swan quickly bypasses the easy route and takes Nina down a cold, eerie alley where she must face her demons alone and as a single being. That Nina is tortured by her dark alter ego is not unexpected, but the way that Portman and Aronofsky illustrate the downward spiral is both surprising and terrifying. Nina begins to go pretty bonkers (well, that's putting it mildly) and her journey is like a melodramatic nightmare that wisely questions reality.

What is real? What is in Nina's head? What the hell is that thing in the dark? Portman communicates Nina's arc with such power and dedication that the answers become blurred by the specifics of her quest. It doesn't matter what is the real world and what is imagined, because Black Swan takes place entirely in Nina's world, through which we feel the weight of the situation with stunning clarity. The conflict and consequences are given great meaning by virtue of their connection to Nina's fate, so the life-altering importance of the unfolding events is felt at all times, no matter how frightfully fantastical the narrative becomes.

With Portman's exquisite performance at its core, Black Swan is a boldly beautiful character drama that smartly and effectively echoes the onscreen events by matching performer, character, and role. But the visual experience of the movie is also exceptionally elaborate and offers another set of layers through which we can feel our way through to the other side. Aronofsky and cinematographer Matthew Libatique toy with reflections for the entire movie, be it the bold shots of towering mirrors in the ballet studio or the chilly, faded distortions in the windows of a subway train.

At almost every step, Nina is watching herself and further shattering her persona. Her struggle to retain a grip on reality (in order to deliver the perfect performance, because dancing success is pretty much everything to her) is further complicated by her inability to reconcile the warring sides within her. She is the White Swan transforming into the Black Swan with all of the reckless passion and purpose that only a truly dedicated performer can muster. Nina's equally internal and external battle with herself is bound by tragedy, but defined by commitment. She wants to achieve perfection at any cost and she refuses to let anything get in her way.

Dancing to the rhythms of Portman's performance, Black Swan is an astonishing work of eclectic, eccentric art. This Swan certainly has wings, but it has fangs, too, and it's not afraid to bite deep into the flesh. Its powerful pull is irresistible and it offers an unforgettable journey made most memorable by Portman's stellar work in the spotlight. It's the performance of the year in the movie of the year. Aronofsky has crafted yet another methodical masterpiece of a movie, but it is his lead who steals the show. Portman holds our hand and pulls us deeper into the abyss, away from the soothing light and closer to the inescapable Black, showing us how irrevocably incredible her personal pursuit of perfection has proven to be.