BY MILA PANTOVICH

PRIDE STAFF WRITER

photos courtesy of onlinemovieshut.com and daemonsmovies.com

“Black Swan”

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Writers: Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz, John J. McLaughlin

Runtime: 107 min.

Rating: R

When it comes to Darren Aronofsky (“The Wrestler,” “Requiem for a Dream,” and “Pi”), regardless of the genre, you know exactly what sort of film you’ll be walking into; it will be intelligent, passionate, brutal, beautiful, and raw. With each film, Aronofsky continues to deliver, and “Black Swan” only further ups the ante. Within the competitive and physically abusive world of professional ballet, Aronofsky poses a constructed reality that just may be more truthful than that which is considered real outside of the frame. Channeling Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis,” the psychologically disturbing “Black Swan” will leave you stunned, stuttering out pieced together fragments of your shattered thoughts.

Nina (Natalie Portman) is a dedicated and poised dancer with the New York City Ballet Company who pushes her body and her mind to the limit to be her best. Delicate and childlike, Nina is a perfectionist who still lives with her overbearing mother (Barbara Hershey), while frozen in a ten year old’s bedroom. After Thomas (Vincent Cassel), the company director, forces the company’s star (Winona Ryder) into retirement, a new star is needed to play the dual role of the Swan Queen for the new season’s opening performance of Swan Lake. It’s immediately apparent that Nina completely embodies the White Swan, the epitome of virginal innocence, but she is unable to bring the seductive Black Swan out from within. With the role in her hands, Nina is pushed to her limits when the relaxed and sexually vibrant Lily (Mila Kunis) arrives. With Thomas’s urging her to awaken the passion he knows is within and with Lily as a reflection of everything she cannot be, Nina quickly finds herself losing grip on her rapidly fragmenting reality as she pursues the perfect performance.

Set in the world of professional ballet, “Black Swan” can easily be seen as a companion film to Aronofsky’s 2008 “The Wrestler.” Both films show how far professional athletes will push themselves, forcing their bodies and minds to take on abuses that can physically and mentally cripple them in an instant. Whereas “The Wrestler” approaches the theme through the use of a hardened and aged man, showing the deep vulnerability within, “Black Swan” centers on an incredibly delicate and timid young woman who is internally deeply disturbed and twisted. Every choice made by Aronofsky, the excruciating emphasis put on bloody toe nails and the straining corded muscles of Nina’s feet as she stands en pointe for hours on end, violently and delicately propels forward the story of a ballet dancer on the brink of darkness.

After strenuously training for a year and losing twenty pounds, Natalie Portman completely transforms herself into Nina, obliterating any doubt as to her unending talent. Completely perfecting the dual nature of the Swan Queen, she blurs the lines between the timid beauty of the White Queen with the underlying darkness of the Black Queen lurking beneath. With Nina’s rapidly fracturing mental state, her perception of reality can never be completely trusted, making Portman’s Nina delicately terrifying; the perfect unreliable narrator.

While Portman’s performance absolutely stuns, leaving you breathless with its intensity, the rest of the cast never dares to solely rely on Portman’s performance. Winona Ryder is wonderful as the aged ballerina who is pushed from the spotlight, terrified of her limitations and living with the unending crippling fear of aging. As the seductively sleazy director, Vincent Cassel shines. He pushes and prods Nina, his actions methodical and always with purpose, until she has no other response but to mentally crack. Mila Kunis, in a role completely different from those in her past, slides within the film seamlessly. She plays Lily with a free-spirit that is questionable in its intentions, reflecting all that Nina needs to bring out from within herself. Out of the excellent supporting cast, Barbara Hershey is spectacular as Nina’s mother. She manages to effortlessly play the role of a domineering mother seen through Nina’s cracked perception, subtly layering her character. You have no idea what to believe and in this sense, “Black Swan” completely blurs the lines between reality and its false perceptions, to the point where the mere concept of reality fails to hold any merit.

“Black Swan” is as close to perfection as a film can get. Every single decision is thoughtful and nothing is wasted, building up psychological terror to culminate in the inevitable ending. The camerawork is frenetic and claustrophobic, framing countless fast-paced close-ups that place you within the fractured reality of Nina’s life. You are never allowed to take a step back from the unending pain that is threaded within the film’s fabric. The score emphasizes the slightest sound, magnifying it to a degree that suffocates you. Nina’s labored breathing, the unbearable feeling of her nails scratching along her skin, it all works to lock you within the frame and stutter your own casual breathing. Aronofsky expertly uses as many reflective surfaces as he can and films Portman through these surfaces more often than not, portraying Nina more as a reflection than a person, highlighting her rapidly splintering personality.

While “Black Swan” may not be a horror film in the conventional sense, portions of the film will disturb you in ways that a slasher film never could. Don’t dare let a film set in the world of ballet turn you off because “Black Swan” is deeply and psychologically terrifying and will easily go down in film history as a rare and perfect achievement. Beautifully framed and emotionally tense, the film is layered so expertly that it is rigid in form but loose in content. Working as a modern adaptation of “Swan Lake” itself, Aronofsky manages to create many self-reflective layers within “Black Swan.” The film itself even works as a reflection of the layered Swan Queen; “Black Swan” is a controlled beauty that is wildly dangerous, incredibly free and terrifyingly seductive beneath.