Black Swan

Ratings: 8.2/10

Film Class: B

Genre: Thriller

Creepy, disturbing and thought-provokingly eerie. Darren Aronofsky has once again delivered a raw and unsettling artistic film to his audience. A ballet dancer (Natalie Portman) managed to clinch the lead role in the classic ballet piece "Swan Lake", where she is to play both the innocent and pure white swan as well as the evil twin sister, the black swan. The story tells of a woman who became a swan and the only way to break the curse was to have a man fall in love with her. However, her evil twin sister managed to win his heart instead and out of desperation, the white swan jumps off a cliff to her death.

Natalie Portman's lead role is threatened by her inability to bring out the "dark" side of her character and her artistic director is contemplating of using a new dancer, Lily (Mila Kunis) as her dark alternate. There are only 4 main leads in this movie, Natalie Portman, her mother, Mila Kunis and the artistic director, of which everyone plays a seemingly important role.

Despite the moody and dark feel this film embodies its audience with, I'm actually quite fond of it. Though I don't fully understand this abstract film, all I can say is that it's really one of the better artistic films I've caught so far. Highly recommended, not for the faint hearted since it's creepy and gruesome at times (has a hint of horror and gore) but overall it should suit the likes of the majority. And once again, like all other arty farty movies out there, I shall attempt to explain my interpretation of the movie. So for those of you who still haven't caught, I wouldn'y suggest reading on... *Major spoilers ahead*

To cut the story short, I think the movie is highly commendable because it brings forth a concept I have yet to come across. Somewhere in the midst of the movie, I felt that Mila Kunis (Lily) was probably the alternate ego of Natalie Portman (Nina). That's something I'm sure most avid movie-goers would have thought of. And there's the real "twist".

Most thought-provoking movies touched on concepts of schizophrenia, but this movie worked in reverse order. Nina started out as a normal, idealistic ballet dancer who like all others yearned for the opportunity to play a lead role in a performance. Then she gradually falls prey to the dark side within herself, as provoked by her artistic director, Thomas Leroy. He was the trigger who brought out the sensual and dark side of the innocent Nina. It wasn't till her last line that I think I managed to grasp the underlying meaning the movie... Her last words were "I felt it, perfect. I was perfect."

Nina had always wanted to be "perfect", and at the very end when she realised there was no real threat but herself, she came to understand what perfect was because she became two different persons... the white swan and the black swan. In other words, though technically wrong but in layman's terms it might be appropriate, Nina became schizophrenic. Every human has a good and dark side of themselves. Nina was no exception. However, she was able to surpress the dark side until there were too many "triggers" around her. This lead to her "unleashing" the dark side, but with undesirable consequences but she literally let her dark side "out". So much so that she started to hallucinate the very existence of "her". This is the reason why I mentioned this movie worked in reverse order.

We see someone normal, then at the end of the movie, she became schizo... Lily was never a threat to her and she was a real person... whilst Thomas Leroy is indeed a pervert but ironically also did an excellent job in bringing the "dark" side of a person out. The main puzzle of the entire movie is Nina's mother. There were many awkwardly creepy scenes in the movie which till now sends question marks hovering around my head. I believe her mother was the cranky and overly possessive one, which made Nina look as if she had a problem with herself. But then again, the possibility of the scratches behind her back are highly caused by herself, which in other words means that Nina is somewhat unstable in the first place.

To put everything into perspective, Nina was the 2nd most normal character in the movie, Lily being the first. She could have some compulsive disorder about scratching herself but everything was kept in check. Then as Nina got the lead role, she was overwhelmed by obsession to keep her lead role in the swan lake, thus seemingly saw the "dark" side of Lily. To make matters worst, Thomas Leroy further brought the dark side of Nina out and her mother agitated the process. The scratches on her back worsened without her realisation possibly because she started to lose herself. Then everything that happened to her, as she "saw" it, black fur coming out from her scratches, Winona Ryder (the former lead for the swan lake, whom Nina is replacing) stabbing herself with a pair of scissors, and how Nina manifested into a black swan were all a hallucination and symbolises the process of how Nina losing herself and when she finally turned into a black swan, was where she "drove the dark side of her out into another entity", ie. she transformed into 2 personas.

Well, that's my interpretation of the movie to my understanding. For those of you who beg to differ, this review is not to prove theories because I'm sure after much debate, no one will really know the answer apart from the director himself. All I'm hoping is that this review clears some doubts and at least provides an explanation for those lost watching this movie.