Black Swan

Black Swan - Or 'How I learned to stop worrying and watch Natalie Portman masturbate for two hours'.

It's dawning on me why so many people desperately see films on opening night. Hype is like a drug, a merciless and cruel drug that builds up your expectations then crushes your heart with saddening reality. Recently my general lethargy has meant that I have been late to see many highly recommended films - The Social Network being one - where the collective mind of society is imploding in orgasmic appreciation for the film, which afterwards leaves a dry taste in my mouth. Just like missing the punchline of a joke, hype makes you feel like you've missed the greatness of the film.

I will be honest, as a flagrant homosexual the idea of Natalie Portman, ballet and casual lesbianism is more arousing than I'd like to admit. Seeing the trailer for celebrated director Darren Aronofsky's dark 'psychological thriller' Black Swan was like soft-core pornography of the highest caliber. (Note: I say 'psychological thriller' in sarcastic finger-quotes because the film is no more a psychological thriller than Confessions of a Shopaholic, but more on that anon) So when I was given the opportunity to own quite a high quality version of the film more than a month before it's Australian release date- I jumped at the opportunity. I'll try and avoid writing about the plot too much for those who still haven't seen it (it is not released in Australia for another few weeks). However the main plot focuses on Nina, a ballet dancer in a company who is given the lead role in Swan Lake. Nina must embody two parts of the same role, the fragile and pure White Swan and it's evil conniving twin, the Black Swan. Feeling the pressure of perfection, Nina begins to feel concerns of being replaced, not being good enough, and needing to feel herself up all the damn time.

I mentioned the supposed genre of the film - a 'psychological thriller', yet the film does nothing to delve into the psychology of the characters, nor does it thrill. It attempts to shock the viewer into a state of frenzy to mirror that of frail and deeply unlikable main character Nina (Portman) with cheap and pointless scare tactics. In once scene Wynonna Ryder takes a nail file and begins stabbing her face - screaming, "I'M NOTHING, I'M NOTHING, I'M NOTHING." The irony was not lost on me, considering the same could be said of Wynonna's recent career - however I wasn't afraid, I wasn't overwhelmed, I was just amazed that this film had been going on as long as it had. Possibly the most psychologically taxing element of this film is that apparently every man within the ballet company is a heterosexual - still, days later I cannot understand this.

This is not an original film, what it is, however, is a combination of preexisting films, fused together for no real reason, which makes it clumsy and clunky. It's said that Aronofsky 'conceived the premise' after watching a production of Swan Lake and connecting it with a preexisting yet unrealized screenplay about understudies. This 'preexisting yet unrealized screenplay' being 1995 classic Showgirls, however where Black Swan is broody and confusing, Showgirls has boobs. So at the moment we have Black Showgirls, a film about ballet dancers fearing replacement. But what about the 'psychological' elements- lets add the concept perfected in the 1999 film adaption of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club. One man, two characters - reality fractures and he is consumed with destruction. In Fight Club, we see one man's complete destruction, in Black Swan we see Natalie Portman go to the ULTIMATE rebellion against ballet and her mother (who I will dedicate a paragraph to in all good time) by having sex with a woman. I honestly don't think ballerinas would be so interested in oral sex - sounds like a lot of empty calories. So, combining these three filmic elements, Black Showgirl Club is born. I hesitate to call this movie Black Showgirl Club Shoes, including 1948 classic The Red Shoes because honestly the ballet elements of the film aren't original either, but I like the imagery of Black Showgirl Club. If Kanye calls his next album that, I want royalties.

Possibly the only redeeming part of this film for me was the character of the mother (Barbara Hershey). For no reason at all, the mother is insane, now it's debatable if some of her antics are just projections of Nina's insanity, or if she actually is just sitting up late at night painting pictures of Natalie Portman and weeping (but honestly, who hasn't done that?). Due to the ever exhausting character of Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) the ballet company director who really only exists in the film to remind the audience that Nina is pure and virginal and cannot achieve the darkness of the Black Swan- Nina is urged to (say this in a heavy French accent) "go 'ome and play wiz 'erself". Nina wakes up the next morning and decides to say good morning to the vicar downstairs - midway through mounting her own hand she turns and there, sitting next to her bed is HER MOTHER. Luckily she's asleep, but the situation alone is one of the funniest and most scaring scenes in the history of film. And I thought my mother liked to smother.

The film is like that, though. It's not subtle in the least. The plot itself is so overdone that one can pretty much guess what is going to happen within the first ten minutes of the film (extra time allotted if you haven't seen the trailer). Unlike Fight Club, there is no clever twist at the end because we know Nina is crazy, and by the time you've finally made it through her transformation from lacking any substance or personality to a sex-crazed, psychotic and uninterestingly crazed woman - you really don't care what happened to her mother's 'good girl' (remember that she's a good girl, you might forget in-between the four or five minutes where a character doesn't say it).

I would have given Aronofsky credit for creating an interesting element to the film by having all the characters within the film mirror that of the ballet - however he credits his characters with their character name AND the name of the character they're based off of in the ballet. Like the delicate kiss of being slapped in the testicle with a pregnant trout, Aronofsky actually spells everything out for the viewer. It's condescending and tiresome. Similarly, the cinematography - akin to that of his earlier film The Wrestler, shot close and using handheld cameras to create a sense of claustrophobia and psychological chaos - it's wasted in this film. Portman obviously went through strenuous dance training and it's not shown when the camera is shakily consumed with a shoulder or a knee rather than a distant, still shot of dance.

Understand these are my opinions only. I do not represent a majority with my reaction to this film - in fact I believe the only reason I'm so tragically upset by it is because I had such high expectations for its success. I plan to view the film, legally, in the cinema for a second time to see if my views change. If they do I will change my opinion here - however if they don't, I'll probably just have more of a reason to whine to my friends about how much time I wasted watching Natalie Portman masturbate in ballet shoes.