Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is an infantalized, virginal, uptight ballet dancer who has sights on the role of the Swan Queen in Swan Lake--a role that epitomizes the virgin/whore dichotomy through the characters of the white (good, pure, innocent) and black (evil, sexy) swans. She is competing with a plethora of young, bitchy ballet lovelies for the role (including Lost Girl's Ksenia Solo as Veronica). These "bunheads" are serious (although macing the entire cast during the performance would have really made me like the film SO much more). Poor Nina is menaced by a series of players that contribute to her fragile and fracturing subjectivity. Darren Aronofsky illustrates her troubled perspective by showing a bazillion mirror shots. How original!
Channeling Carrie
Nina's infantalized repression is enabled by her crazy, "loving" Mom, Erica, played by Barbara Hershey in a thankless, bitter role. The only differences between Erica and Margaret White (Carrie's Mom) is that she loves her daughter with cake rather than a bible, and worships Baryshnikov rather than Saint Sebastian. They both channel their sordid regrets toward bearing and raising children into creative endeavors (sewing for Margaret, painting for Erica). Both women are disgusted by their daughters' burgeoning sexuality, and try to keep them locked into their little girl roles. They also worry that their daughters' rebellions (prom and sexy ballet respectively) will ultimately destroy these young women, and both evil, controlling mothers are completely CORRECT about that. Still, they are to blame for all the disastrous events that occur because mothers are always to blame, don't you know? And they are both kind of evil. One legitimately horrifying moment occurs when Nina starts masturbating, and then turns to find her mother asleep in a chair next to Nina's bed. Yikes.
Vincent Cassel plays the lecherous ballet's creative director, Tomas, who believes that the best way to get a woman to open up sexually is to physically assault her, shoving his tongue down Nina's throat, and then alternately calling her his "little princess"--a name he gives to all his playthings. He ostensibly is helping Nina become the Black Swan by jumping all over her and ordering her to masturbate. She bites his tongue, which seems to me to be an entirely appropriate response. Even the token sexy girl, Lily (played by Mia Kunis) thinks he's a total creep, but what does she know? She slips Nina a mickey at a club and then abandons her. Still, Lily's on hand for Nina's bi-curious repressed desires, which leads us right into Zalman King territory, or maybe more like Jennifer's Body world (which will be another post for sure).
I'm really not sure which film's lesbian make out scene is more gratuitous!
Some of the body horror imagery in the film is rather cool, and reminded me a bit of Ginger Snaps w/o the acquisition of werewolf super-powers. Nina sprouts feathers, tears off her fingernails, develops burning red eyeballs. The best transformation, though, has to be the crazy bird legs!
Still, none of these elements compensate for Aronofsky's heavy-handed symbolism, the painfully obvious doubling on display, the fetishizing male gaze (sometimes aligned with Tomas), or Nina's campy hyperbolic craziness. Unlike the aforementioned Carrie, I find it singularly impossible to identify with Black Swan's victimized protagonist, and I was more than happy to see Nina meet her inevitable fate.
The fact that this derivative mess won Natalie Portman an Oscar for best actress just proves that the only awards show worth watching is the Independent Spirit Awards. But then I remembered that she won at that ceremony too, and Aronofsky won for best director. Fine. FINE! Just another reminder that I'm on Planet Bunheads rather than Planet Black Swan, and the only real reason to watch the Spirit Awards is because these two women perform every year.
Word.
