Rating: 4/5
Rewatching for a podcast
I haven’t seen this since it came out. I barely remember how I felt then, other than not liking it as much as The Wrestler, probably because The Wrestler was more “grounded” and because I was/am insufferable.
Natalie Portman, playing perpetually overwrought and high-strung, can only embody the White Swan. To represent both it and the Black Swan, she needs to find something/someone else within, someone loose and free, someone capable of darkness.
How could she find freedoms with a mother — herself a former dancer — who swings wildly from jealous to supportive — the type of upbringing that creates the sort of anxious attachment on display, the kind of person who craves control over their life, however they can get it.
She sees that freedom in Mila Kunis, literally dressed in black, not stretching when she’s supposed to, cursing and complaining, “imprecise but not faking it.” She also gets a glimpse of the dark impulses through Winona Ryder’s violent eruption upon learning she is being replaced, as evidenced by her willingness to walk into traffic to convey her dismay.
Though the movie suggests self-harm in Portman’s past — her mother, when seeing the inexplicable rash, asks if she has been scratching again — it becomes clear that the transformation to The Black Swan is ultimately one of self-mutilation, or even self-destruction.
It’s not a Persona-esque homage without mirrors, doppelgängers, narcissism, repressed longings. And being sexually attracted to someone who reminds you of yourself. While it does almost nothing to expand on these themes, what helps this stand out is the grotesque nature of her transformation — real or imagined — cracked toenails, torn cuticles, and of course that pesky rash that seems to be sprouting feathers…
If the themes of the movies are ever unclear, Vincent Cassel tells the audience — although his motives are less than pure, the movie never contradicts them. It’s amusing how his presence in any film serves as an unspoken warning to the audience that this movie intends to make you uncomfortable.
Stray thoughts/Spoilers:
- The hand trauma messes with me.
- The horror movie mirror scares are… fine.
- Young Sebastian Stan spotting!
- Stray paint in the stairwell like black feathers falling.
- The third act pulls the whole thing together. It helps that Aronofsky didn’t write this.
Overall, this is tied with The Wrestler as the best things Aronofsky has directed, and likely will direct.