Black Swan review

Natalie Portman excels in this gripping ballet psychodrama from Darren Aronofsky.
Peter Bradshaw applauds a film about fear, love and hatred

o Peter Bradshaw
o guardian.co.uk, hursday !" #anuary !"$$ $%.&' ()
Dark star ... Natalie Portman.
*antastically deranged at all times, Darren Aronofsky+s ballet psycho,
melodrama is a glittering, crackling, outrageously pickable scab of a
film.
1. Black Swan
!. Production year: !"$"
-. Country: ./A
%. Cert (UK): $&
&. Runtime: $"- mins
0. Directors: Darren Aronofsky
1. Cast: Barbara 2ershey, )ila 3unis, Natalie Portman, 4incent 5assel, 6inona 7yder
8. )ore on this film
At its centre is young ballerina Nina /ayers, played by Natalie
Portman. /he is beautiful, vulnerable, sexually naive and susceptible to
mental illness. o play the role of a lifetime, Nina must delve deep into
her own dark side. As her hallucinations and anxiety attacks escalate in
tandem with her progress in rehearsal, artistic breakthrough fuses with
nervous breakdown. his is a movie about fear of penetration, fear
of your body, fear of being supplanted in the affections of a powerful
man, love of perfection, love of dance, and perhaps most importantly of
all, passionate and overwhelming hatred of your mother.
Portman has decisively moved out of the ugly duckling phase of her
career with this tremendous performance as Nina, a hardworking corps
member of a New 9ork 5ity ballet company who has low,level dieting
and self,harm issues more or less under control. /he lives with her
difficult mother : an impressive and satisfyingly nasty performance
from Barbara 2ershey : who abandoned her own stagnant ballet
career on being impregnated by some heartless, mercurial mogul or
other, and channelled her rage and disappointment into coaching the
resulting daughter, whom she has attempted to infantilise by filling her
pink bedroom with gonks and installing a deplorable musical box that
tinkles the theme from /wan ;ake.
6e <oin the story as the company is about to dispense with its bitter
has,been star =and wrecked gamine> Beth )acintyre? the casting of
6inona 7yder is sadistically <udged. he company+s exacting director
homas ;eroy, played by 4incent 5assel, is looking for someone new
to play the lead in /wan ;ake. 2is hooded eye settles on tremulous
Nina. But he warns her that the biggest challenge will be playing the
character+s evil twin, the @Black /wan@. /he has to find the darker,
more sensual side of herself. homas invites Nina back to his
apartment for intimate drinks. o develop the role, he instructs her to go
home and touch herself. ouching homas also appears to be on the
agenda. his is not based on anything by Noel /treatfeild.
An addition, homas encourages Nina to admire the company+s new
ballerina? funky free spirit and Blympic,standard minx ;ily =)ila 3unis>,
who helps unlock Nina+s life,force with seductive overtures of
friendship, and more. But does ;ily simply want to steal Nina+s roleC As
Nina+s anxiety intensifies, she is worried about a weird feathery skin,
rash and becomes convinced that her reflection in the mirror continues
to stare at her after she has turned away.
As a study of female breakdown, Black /wan is the best thing since
Polanski+s 7epulsion. But, in fact, with its creepy )anhattan interiors,
its looming, closeup camera movements, and its encircling conspiracy
of evil, it looks more like 7osemary+s Baby, particularly in
cinematographer )atthew ;ibatiDue+s brilliant continuous shot in which
Nina makes out with a random guy in a club, then wakes up to what
she+s doing and, freaked out, blunders through murky winding corridors
and out into the night air : there seems no difference between inside
and outside. Everywhere is claustrophobic.
Bf course, any ballet movie has to be compared with )ichael Powell
and Emeric Pressburger+s he 7ed /hoes, and the figure of homas is
obviously inspired by Anton 6albrook+s legendary martinet : although
homas is rather less high minded : and Nina+s PB4 pirouette,whirl in
rehearsal is also taken from Powell and Pressburger. But again, their
influence might be more from the convent drama Black Narcissus, and
the final confrontation of 3athleen Byron and Deborah 3err. here are
also hints of #ohn ;andis+s An American 6erewolf in ;ondon.
his happens to be the second film recently that has used the /wan
;ake theme : Favier Beauvois+s Bf (ods and )en featured it
counterintuitively, at the crisis of an ascetic and spiritual tale of *rench
monks. Ats use in Black /wan is self,explanatory : it is more obviously
grandiloDuent and excessive and appropriate to the fireworks going off
in Nina+s head. =An both cases, the /wan ;ake theme is technically
diegetic, in that the music is physically present in the story, being
played respectively on the monks+ old tape machine and in the
orchestra pit.> But my goodness, Aronofsky likes to play that /wan
;ake theme loud. 2e+s probably right to do so. chaikovsky+s rich,
gloriously direct music needs to be punched over, and punched over it
is. )otGrhead could not have played the /wan ;ake theme any louder
than this. A left the cinema with blood trickling from my ears.
Black /wan is ionospherically over the top, and some of its effects are
overdone, but it is richly, sensually en<oyable and there is such
fascination in seeing Portman surrender to the madness and watch her
face transmute into a horror,mask like a nightmare version of )aria
5allas. At is exciting, Duite mad and often really scary.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/flm/2011/jan/20/black-swan-review
First there was the Phantom of the Opera. Now, in
Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan," you get the
Terror of the Ballet.
The movie combines horror-movie tropes with The Red Shoes, All About Eve and every movie
about show business that insists you don't have to be crazy to become a star but it doesn't hurt
either. The movie is so damn out-there in every way that you can't help admiring rono!sky !or
daring to be so very, very absurd.
Swan is an instant guilty pleasure, a gorgeously shot, visually comple" !ilm whose badness is
what's so good about it. #ou might howl at the sheer audacity o! mi"ing mental illness with the
body-!atiguing, mind-numbing rigors o! ballet, but its lurid imagery and a hellcat competition
between two rival dancers is pretty irresistible. $ertain to divide audiences, Swan won't lack !or
controversy, but will any o! this build an audience% &on't bet against it.
Swan bears a resemblance to rono!sky's most recent !ilm, The Wrestler. 'ts battered, lonely
protagonist was a pro wrestler who drags his weary body into the ring night a!ter night because
that's what he is -- a wrestler. Same with Natalie Portman's (ina, a sinewy, thin slip o! a
ballerina whose body actually cracks loudly while getting out o! bed. But she heads into the
dance studio every day to pirouette on bloody toes and strain every muscle in her body.
Because that's what she does.
)nly rono!sky suggests, right !rom an opening dream se*uence, that (ina might be cracking
up. +e keeps the camera close to his heroine, not ,ust so ob,ects and people can suddenly loom
ne"t to her as in all horror !licks, but to suggest a certain amount o! paranoia and
claustrophobia.
(ina lives with an emotionally smothering mother, played by Barbara Hershey in as
un!lattering makeup, hairstyle and lighting as possible. -om hovers obsessively over her
daughter, watching everything !rom her diet to nervous habits, like scratching her skin until it
bleeds. +owever, as with any o! the lurid visions in this movie -- bloody nails, breaking bones,
puncture wounds, nasty sutures -- you're never *uite sure how real they are. They could be
!igments o! (ina's !ervid imagination.
(ew #ork ballet company's artistic director, Thomas .Vincent Cassel, the only
unambiguous character in the !ilm/, selects (ina !or the double role o! the 0hite Swan and
Black Swan in his provocative new take on that old war horse 1Swan 2ake.1 +e knows (ina can
nail the 0hite Swan, but he's not so sure she can embody the dark side o! the Swan 3ueen. So
he imports !rom the 0est $oast another dancer, 2ily .Mila Kunis/, whose cunning,
deviousness and rampant 'd make her an ideal Black Swan. 2ily becomes (ina's alternate !or
the Swan 3ueen -- and her rival.
(ina got the role in the !irst place when Thomas cavalierly tossed aside the company's previous
prima ballerina, Beth .Winona Ryder/. Beth slinks around the !ilm's periphery, hissing
obscenities and accusations until she winds up in a hospital a!ter walking in !ront o! a car. 2ike
the mother character, Beth e"ists to up the ante o! paranoia and tension as mental chaos
relentlessly assails (ina.
(ina's drive !or per!ection runs roughshod over her health and !riendships. (othing else
matters. Thomas eggs her on, using se"ual abuse and intimidation to get her to 1lose yoursel!1
in darkness. '! he only knew how truly lost (ina is in that darkness. 0hat she really is losing is
her sense o! reality.
ll this psycho drama builds to a !ever pitch braced by the woozy lyricism o! Tchaikovsky's
music, sumptuous choreography by (ew #ork $ity Ballet star Ben,amin -illepied and -atthew
2ibati*ue's darting, weaving camera. By 1Swan 2ake's1 opening night, the !ilm surrenders to
the surreal when (ina's body grows !eathers and horri!ic backstage mayhem vanishes on cue.
rono!sky, working with an original script by ndres +einz that later was rewritten by -ark
+eyman and 4ohn -c2aughlin, never succeeds in wedding genre elements to the world o!
ballet. The !ilm takes its cues !rom 1Swan 2ake1 itsel! as demons, doubles and death dance in
(ina's head. She can only approach per!ection by becoming the dual character she plays -- the
innocent and the evil.
5ortman, who has danced but is no ballerina, does a more than credible ,ob in the big dance
numbers and the tough rehearsals that are so essential to the !ilm. 'n her acting, too, you sense
she has bravely ventured out o! her com!ort zone to play a character slowly losing sight o!
hersel!. 't's a bravura per!ormance.
6unis makes a per!ect alternate to 5ortman, e*ually as lithe and dark but a smirk o! sel!-
assurance in place o! 5ortman's wide-eyed !ear!ulness. 'ndeed, 0hite Swan7Black Swan
dynamics almost work, but the horror-movie nonsense drags everything down the rabbit hole
o! preposterousness.
Venue: Venice International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival (Fox
Searchliht!
"roduction: #ross #ree$ "ictures in association with "roto%oa "ictures and "hoenix "ictures
#ast: &atalie "ortman, Vincent #assel, 'ila (unis, Winona R)der, *arbara +ershe)
,irector: ,arren Arono-s$)
Screenwriters: 'ar$ +e)man, Andres +ein%, .ohn 'c/auhlin
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/black-swan-flm-review-2991
Film Review: Black Swan
More horror than ballet flm, in every sense of the word.
Dec 2, 2010
-By David Noh
For movie details, please click here.
*rom her first onscreen appearance in Black Swan as the ferociously ambitious ballerina Nina,
Natalie Portman, always a totally committed, forceful actress, attacks the role with the sorrowful
intensity of a handmaiden to high art akin to *alconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc. Nina is
desperate to play the double lead of 6hite and Black /wan in Swan Lake, and must prove her
mettle to her company+s demanding, horny director =4incent 5assel>H her ultimate stage mom,
herself a failed ballerina =a weirdly smoothed and surgically tightened Barbara 2ershey>, and a
variety of interchangeably pouty,faced, <ealous fellow dancers, led by her main nemesis, the
conniving ;ily =)ila 3unis>. Nina+s obsession drives her to the brink of insanity and then beyond,
making rehearsal studio and the stage itself into the bloodiest of battlegrounds.
A freely admit to being a sucker for ballet movies, whether the incandescently immortal The Red
Shoes, the engaging $'1& BB5 adaptation of Noel /treatfield+s classic Ballet Shoes, the guilty,
pleasure soapiness of The Turning Point or even the overripe Ben 2echt,scripted lunacy of Specter
of the Rose. A was, therefore, keenly looking forward to Darren Aronofsky+s Black SwanIand all the
more disappointed by the garish farrago that it is. /tereotypes are actually sometimes accurate, and
the target audience for ballet itself has always been women and gay men. Bn the basis of this and
7obert Altman+s The Company =maybe his worst film>, it would seem that heterosexual males+ main
interest in the genre would be gratuitously incorrect female nudity =ballerinas are not showgirls>,
hints of lesbianism, and All About !e,like backstage bitchery inevitably exploding into salacious
catfighting. o this tired formula, Aronofsky also adds the kind of physicaliJed torture he featured
in The "restler, and his film is rife with excruciating close,ups of bloody feet, torn flesh and
freakishly deformed muscles. Any true sense of art, grace or beauty in the form is strictly lacking,
and, to paraphrase a song from A Chorus Line, here @Everything is .gly at the Ballet.@
9our expectations seriously lowered, youKd think this might at least work as a trashily en<oyable
fantasy of the dance world, but Aronofsky wrongheadedly tries to combine the elements of a horror
film with his ever,pretentious aspirations, resulting in an over,the,top mess whose mounting
absurdity and violence become a thorough audience punishment. =9ou <ust give in and guffaw at the
grimly serious ridiculousness of it all.> .ntold sympathy goes out to poor Portman, who obviously
went through extreme mental and physical exertionIeven humiliationIfor such a worthlessly
exploitative endH her character never develops beyond incessant suffering and Aronofsky, with three
screenwriters, hasn+t even convincingly laid the reDuisite framework for this mousy girl+s devastating
Eve 2arrington ambition. 6hat he is tellingly more interested in are her scenes of masturbation and
lesbian oral sex.
he characters are, uniformly, lurid cartoons, from 5assel+s maestro =a performance which could be
deemed high camp in more fun circumstances> to 2ershey+s one,note, controlling gorgon of a
mother out of /tephen 3ing and 3unis as the most clichLd predatory lesbian in screen history =and
that+s really saying something>. 6inona 7yder pops up in that classically essential role of the faded,
replaced star, and momentarily gives the film a <olt of true passion, with an all,out vulgar ;iJ aylor
intensity. As for the ballet scenes themselves, here Aronofsky really shows his clueless ham hand
with the form, as you come away with no sense of any real choreography? 2is staged Swan
Lake looks as cheap as any suburban community theatre production.
http://www.flmjournal.com/flmjournal/content!display/reviews/major-
releases/e"ia"e#122$%1e02$#&##&c0109$212
Black Swan (2010)
Director: Darren Aronofsky
ime !ut ratin"
#$era"e user ratin"
1%% re$iews
&o$ie re$iew
'rom ime !ut (ondon
AtKs best to switch off the more sensible side of your mind, along with any idea that youKre going to experience a
documentary,style portrait of the world of ballet, before encountering Darren AronofskyKs MBlack /wanK. AtKs a
film that really only works if you let yourself be swirled up, like its main character, in a storm of hysteria,
paranoia and tears? itKs too impulsive and emotional to be picked apart at the level of logic and too ludicrous to
exist in a world other than its own. AtKs huge fun, but only if youKre willing to swallow its more bonkers excesses.
MBlack /wanK gives us a harried, weepy Natalie Portmanas Nina, a delicate, overly mothered dancer with the
New 9ork 5ity Ballet who cracks up ten times over when she lands the dual roles of the 6hite and Black
/wans, Bdette and Bdile, in a production of M/wan ;akeK. 7ealism barely gets a look in as Aronofsky and his
team go hell,for,leather in reflecting this young womanKs fractured mental state : and the balletKs own story and
themes : in everything from an invasive, swirling photographic style to the monochrome production design of
the office and apartment of her mentor and director, homas =pronounced the *rench way and played
by4incent 5assel>, a man as stereotypically MEuropeanK as 2ercule Poirot. A fan of turtlenecks and indoor
scarves, heKs the sort of guy who asks his protegLes to masturbate, <ust to explore their devilish sides.
Br does heC AtKs rarely clear whatKs real or not in MBlack /wanK. AronofskyKs approach to psychological drama :
to making real the horrors of the mind : makes the likes of PolanskiKs M7osemaryKs BabyK or M7epulsionK look
very timid. 2e doesnKt go for a gradual reveal of insanity. Anstead, right from the off, we see Nina tearing off
impossible amounts of skin from her fingers and hear awful cracks and snaps as she exercises her feet. *rom
there, all Aronofsky can do is throw taste and subtlety to the wind.
he body horror increases? later, we see NinaKs legs bending and snapping, <ust as she hallucinates while
looking at the walls of the flat she shares with her ultra,protective mother, played as a witch by Barbara
2ershey. 2er other nemeses are a demonic, newly retired dancer =6inona 7yder> and a pretty new colleague
=)ila 3unis>. Bur view of both is entirely distorted by NinaKs breakdown as she struggles to play both swans
and defy homasKs concerns that sheKs too pure to play the more evil role.
he filmKs endless pulp elements =erotica, stabbing, drugs, blood, stranglingN> are tempered by the beauty of
the storyKs context : the music, dancing, costumes : and the filmKs ballsy momentum. 9et thereKs no escaping
that this is high,class trash, however en<oyable. Aronofsky has taken a disturbed psychological state : the
neuroses of a fragile artist : and flung it into lurid territory. 2eKs more concerned with expressing NinaKs
madness and reflecting it =and, boy, he likes mirrors> in the world about her than in making any sense of her
character or the life of a dancer. But he whips up such an orgy of fun in the process that itKs hard not to tear off
your clothes and dive in.
#uthor: Dave 5alhoun
ime But ;ondon Assue !$"'? !" : !0 #anuary, !"$$
http://www.timeout.com/flm/reviews/$'%/black-swan.html
http://vigilantciti(en.com/moviesandtv/the-occult-interpretation-o#-the-movie-
black-swan-and-its-message-on-show-business/
http://#aithallen.wordpress.com/2011/01/0"/black-swan-movie-about-mother-
daughter-se)ual-abuse/
http://abcnews.go.com/*ealth/+ovies/black-swan-psychiatrists-diagnose-
natalie-portmans-portrayal-psychosis/story,id-12&"'%"../0(y&o21u2+
http://voices.yahoo.com/black-swan-ending-leaves-many-3uestions-
%&&&.html,cat-&0