Natalie Portman, Natalie Portman, Natalie Portman. On her narrow shoulders rests Black Swan, in very much the same way as Taxi Driver fell in Robert De Niro’s; except the physical committment to her role has been more extensive than missing out on a few burgers & staring at just her own reflection in one mirror.
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On further reflection, what she has achieved is more analogous to Christian Bale’s performance of physical anorexia & psychological disintegration in The Machinist, but further stretched with the assumption of a completely different artistic discipline - namely that of prima ballerina. For these reasons, Black Swan is a painful film to watch, but one which one cannot help but admire; and not only for its acting, as Darren Aronofsky has created a microcosm which seems entirely capable of generating the populace & sequence of events narrated.
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Whilst the most obvious link to this director’s earlier work is with the physicality portrayed in The Wrestler, there are subtle asides to the coloured originality in which he washed The Fountain, and un-ignorable references to the chaotic shards of obsessiveness & mental fracture examined in Pi.
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Until the morning after the film, I was slightly disappointed that the progression of Portman’s character from Nina Sayers to The Swan Queen was not more linear [or even geometric], so that the triggers to her unbalancing could be more easily discerned. In hindsight [one that may require a second viewing to fully attain] it can be seen that she was actually written as unhinged from before the very first scene - by the restraint of her upbringing, the perfectionist service of her talent, & the stifled drives of an unacknowledged adulthood.
In reality, the meltdown of the talented is more ugly than seen here, if one recalls how those of - for example - Tiger Woods or Britney Spears were documented. Yet, as with Swan Lake itself, beauty is indeed found in the fictional depiction of a dramatic tragedy such as Black Swan - rather than the sad cases seen in real life.
Incidentally, wouldn’t it be amiss not to make a point of doffing one’s cap to the aforementioned famously captivating backdrop to this tale - along the film’s musical arranger Clint Mansell: that source material of the original Swan Lake.
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[courtesy foxsearchlight]
