Black Swan
Darren Aronofsky and Natalie Portman are headed to the Oscars with the “Black Swan”, a thriller that is both classic and extraordinary where the desire for perfection becomes an obsession. Cinema alive and panting as he is making too little each year.
A prestigious ballet is mounting a new version of Swan Lake. The dancer Nina (Natalie Portman) fervently hopes to pick up the lead role, but she has a severe competition from her colleague Lily (Mila Kunis). “Coach” Thomas (Vincent Cassel), the perfect person will both be able to embody the white swan and black swan.
Judging by its retro posters, “Black Swan” seems out of another era. That of the golden age of Hollywood when the first young dream of glory (echo “A Star is Born”), walking briskly on the backs of old celebrities (as “All About Eve”, with Winona Ryder who plays unrecognizable brilliantly the star of yesterday … or her own role) to them. These universal themes are serving a brisk plot, which quickly multiplies the wrong tracks, paying homage to the album by Michael Haneke (“The Pianist”), Krzysztof Kieslowski (“The Double Life of Veronique”) and Satoshi Kon ( mainly “Perfect Blue”).
It is primarily a film that is clearly the seal of Darren Aronofsky. The creator of “Pi” is fascinated by the duality and dependence. In the manner of his masterpiece “Requiem for a Dream”, he plunges his heroine into a long nightmare without end where she must constantly compete with each other, but also with itself. Her mother (Barbara Hershey vibrating) and its “dual” function as distorted mirrors, which prefigure a long struggle to finally achieve its emancipation and especially her identity.
“Black Swan” is therefore a clash between light and darkness, between realism and the supernatural, between the longing to see a dream fulfilled and that to pay the price. The drama that takes on mythic propensities spawning rapidly with suspense and even horror (one thinks of “Repulsion” by Polanski) in how to transform the protagonist, who must learn to change skin (physically, psychologically and sexually) to move to the next level. A development which owes much to the game and felt amazing Natalie Portman. The actress steals the show from her talented cronies camping both sweet and sensitive girl and her alter ego, disturbing and threatening.
In addition to its exaggerations (or hallucinations) grotesque and melodramatic clearly necessary, the story shows a filmmaker who has not totally got rid of his tics. Aronofsky still tends to lead by excess, moralizing, and it is not the director most subtle. Nevertheless, he learned to control himself on the technical side, focusing in the first hand-held camera and close-ups, before being overwhelmed by the greed of his subject. The scene quickly became the scene of all possibilities, good and bad, and many memorable moments take place there, including the final ballet that starts on a high note and never touch the ground.
With its many winks (many his own “Requiem for a Dream” and “The Wrestler”) and his unique way of placing the camera, the director proves that he is incapable of disappointing, and if his vision is not as flamboyant as the underrated “The Fountain”, it will fascinate many. Natalie Portman is all simply brilliant, while the screenplay written six-handed reserve surprises. Regardless if the viewer can guess how it all will end (the effect “Inception”), the important thing is how to tell his story, the emotions and the brilliance of the demonstration: three aspects – among others – that make “Black Swan” is a great pleasure.
