Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” had its share of sentimental imperfections that for this critic subsequently made it the best movie of 2008. “Black Swan,” a film so wholly different from “The Wrestler’s” gritty documentary realism compared to this film’s psychological phantasms, is Aronofsky’s companion piece to “The Wrestler,” examining the price of performance, pain and perfection.
Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), the demanding instructor and director of a prestigious ballet company in New York, announces forthright that their company will be doing a new take on Tchaikovsky’s classic “Swan Lake” for the opening of the new season. But for those unfamiliar with the story, it may not be initially clear that Aronofsky and the film’s three screenwriters are doing their own adaptation on the ballet, harnessing its dark and morbid undertones beneath the elegant beauty of the dance.
Aronofsky’s opening scene establishes this tone; with Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), the film’s and the new production’s Swan Queen, he stages an enchanting yet ultimately haunting dance of physical talent by Portman, cinematic finesse by cinematographer Matthew Libatique and special effects wizardry.
Watching such a classy performance initially made me wonder how Aronofsky would do directing a musical, but his style is all in the right place for what becomes an almost psychological horror story. Continue reading “Black Swan”