‘Black Swan’ (2010)

And so it is upon us: that wondrous time of year when the Coens, the Boyles, and the Scorseses of Hollywood take over the reigns of that slick, flame-licked jet-train of wonderfully over-the-top, blockbuster entertainment that is the summer movie season from the Bays, the Abrams, and the Nolans. We’ve made it through the mostly dull fog of transition that is autumn, and come out on the other side tucked into seat of an old world sleigh, driven by our aforementioned auteurs who are in turn driven by the desire of accolades, awards, and approval. We’ve left behind the bright hot beach of superheros, buddy comedies, and Dwayne the Rock Johnson’s chiseled justice-abs and entered the dark, snow covered wood of yet another film based on Britain’s royal family, insightful human drama imbued with provocative moral questions, and Sean Penn’s angry face, by which I mean his smoldering, volcanic I’m-going-murder-you-and-every-one-of-your-relatives-and-their-pets-with-an-ax face, by which I mean his normal face.

While films from throughout the year come back to gain nominations and awards in the winter season’s awards circus (see ‘Winter’s Bone’, ‘Inception’, ‘The Social Network’, and ‘Toy Story 3′, all released earlier in 2010) , a large majority of the films made with that goal in mind are released in late November and December, with the idea being that their film will be fresher in the voters’ minds. ‘The Fighter’, ‘True Grit’, ‘Blue Valentine’, and the ‘The King’s Speech’ are all being released in December, the first three of which I’d very much like to see. Sorry Colin Firth, you portraying another well dressed British coward overcoming your social inhibitions/grief/stutter (aka convenient real world symbols for all sorts of crap I don’t care about) does not sound like a good time to me. What it does sound like is somebody at the Weinstein Company has shamelessly combined every known Oscar winning movie characteristic into one film. Based on a historical figure? Check. Historical figure is British, and royalty? Double-check. Much respected but Oscarless actor in the lead? Check. Overcoming adversity? Check. Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter in supporting roles? Check. C’mon, that’s just not fair. It’s like the 1992 Dream Team of movies, except nobody’s having a good time (speaking of the Dream Team, movies, and a good time, I wonder where my vhs copy of ‘Space Jam’ (1996) is?).

But I have not seen any of those films yet, and while you may yet have the gift of my divine judgement in regards to them, they are not the topic of the hour. I broke into the winter movie season with Darren Aronofsky’s latest, the ballet psychodrama ‘Black Swan’ (2010). Since debuting with the paranoid mathematician drama ‘Pi’ in 1998, Aronofsky has secured his reputation in Hollywood as a uniquely talented filmmaker with an eye for the pain, paranoia, and struggle of suffering individuals. His last film, the masterpiece of raw humanity that is 2008’s ‘The Wrestler’, further clarified his distinct style and put him on the map as someone to watch for when handing out the statuettes.

His reputation, combined with intriguing clips of Natalie Portman pulling feathers out of her back, created a substantial amount of pre-release buzz for ‘Black Swan’, and it has since gone on to break the gross-per-theater box office record for Fox Searchlight, beating the likes of Searchlight movies ‘Juno’ (2007) and ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ (2008). Set in New York City, Natalie Portman stars as a dancer in a ballet company. Portman lives with her mom, a retired ballerina living out through her child the career she had to abandon when she had said child. Off the dance floor she is a socially, emotionally, and sexually repressed child-woman , while on it she is a desperately driven technical perfectionist and paranoid workhorse.

When Portman lands the lead role in her company’s upcoming production of ‘Swan Lake’ she begins down a transformative path of self discovery, expansion, and destruction as her manic-paranoid personality breaks under the stresses of the role and the drive for perfection. Aronofsky uses the contrasting characters of the innocent White Swan and the carnal Black Swan in ‘Swan Lake’, both of which Portman has to dance, to frame the Portman’s psychological journey. To increase the paranoid thriller aspect Mila Kunis is used as a rival dancer, both threatening to take Portman’s lead role and further aiding in her white-to-black breakdown through social and sexual exploits.

Overall, I thought it was a very good film, a truly arresting and intriguing cinematic experience. The set piece of a ballet company for a fever dream was a pleasure to behold, and I would gladly spend more time there. Aronofsky is unmatched in his ability to get us into a character’s head and heart. Portman’s performance was indeed Oscar worthy; she’ll doubtlessly be nominated for Best Actress and will have a decent chance at winning. The flaws of the film, however, were enough to leave me relatively unexcited when the credits rolled. Best Picture this is not.

Author John D. McDonald said that story is something happening to someone you have been led to care about. It’s an overly succinct definition, but one that highlights the core element of a good story, without which all manner of intricate plotting and beautiful symbolism doesn’t matter: the audience needs to feel strongly about the main characters, as well as about what happens to them. Portman’s character, in a word, was repulsive. It was painful to watch her desperately hang on every glance of her instructor looking for approval, and cowardly cast her eyes down and mumble as he tries to provoke defensiveness in her. Granted, this means I felt strongly about her character, but I did not care what happened to her. I did not become invested in her journey, her plight, her pain, I simply wanted stop witnessing it to end my discomfort. What happened to her on her trip down insanity lane became an object of curiosity, something my brain wanted to know, rather than something my heart wanted to know and to feel.

That being said, Portman portrayed this unpleasantness with remarkable precision. I wouldn’t have felt so strongly about her had she not played the part so skillfully. Kunis’s character, on the other hand, was merely a satisfactory performance. Worse though, was the fact that her role was so clearly a tool, included to affect Portman’s character, and nothing else (I intentionally used the word “used” above, in describing her role). Obviously supporting characters are written into a story to affect the main character, but it’s nice when their role is not so blatant, and at best they are written to be characters in their own right, however small their part, in addition to their role as a tool. Every line of Kunis’s existence was very clearly written to further Portman’s character; she had no voice of her own, and thus she did not feel to me like a human being at all, but instead a pretty hammer, or screwdriver.

Other drawbacks were minor, but added up. A large part of the score of the film is the music from ‘Swan Lake’, and it often transitioned without break from actually being danced to in the studio to acting as the score in a scene back at Portman’s apartment. It’s clear that Aronofsky intended this choice to blur the boundaries between the world of ‘Swan Lake’ and ballet and her regular life, but it ended up working against the emotional drive of these scenes. A film score is written specifically to intensify the emotional impact of each scene it is behind, and ‘Swan Lake’ was not written with this movie in mind. Tchaikovsky’s music did not fit the emotional tone of many of the scenes it was included in.

The overt symbolism and overall predictability of the plot was, like Kunis’s character, a heavy handed gesture that allows us to disconnect from the story and think about what the director is doing. Ideally we would be lost in the story, unaware of the mechanisms of the director, not knowing where the plot is going, and discovering the symbolism in a natural fashion that allows us appreciate its meaning. ‘Black Swan’ had a large, colorful banner hung at the top of the screen plainly stating the themes and metaphors of the film. That kind of transparency is distracting.

But can what is easily predictable still be beautifully told, despite not being exciting? Can the beauty of the symbolism outweigh its distracting patency? In this case, about 1/4 of it can. The first 3/4 thirds of the movie consist of the build up, or the grounds for, the inevitable final act. It is in this final act that the actual production of ‘Swan Lake’ is put on by the ballet company, and Portman’s transformation/breakdown peaks, and in her psychotic view of events she literally transforms, as she is dancing the part of the Black Swan, into a black bird-woman. The energy of the dances in this part of the movie is palpable, and stunningly beautiful. From a purely aesthetic standpoint Aronofsky makes his symbols worthy of our attention. I would watch the last half hour of the film over again in a heartbeat, but as a breathtaking audio-visual piece straining to break free from the bonds of the film it has been included in.

After all is said and done, Aronofsky came up with a fascinating premise with ‘Black Swan’, and proceeded to hit a grounder up the middle instead of knocking it out of the park. But he remains one of the most talented, most unique filmmakers in Hollywood, and I will gladly let him take the reigns of my cinematic sleigh and lead me into the dark, snowy wood that is his artistic vision. Just as long as he doesn’t bring along any of the royal family.

~Patrick O’Roark