You either love it or hate it. Some of my friends don’t like it at all, complaining it is a big downer. Yeah, I watched the movie last December right before Christmas. It seems that it doesn’t feel right if a movie lets one leave the theatre in chills during such a joyous holiday season. But I love every bit of it. I have to say it is one of most disturbing masterpieces I have ever seen, absolutely a piece of art. It keeps haunting you with its irresistible evil beauty when the story is over.
By her stunning performance, Natalie Portman has already snatched a gold statuette for the best actress even before the Oscar ceremony starts. Darren Aronofsky’s brilliant direction also deserves him an Oscar. But I will put all my bet on Natila this year.
If you are a hard-core thriller movie fan, you may be disappointed. Unlike those formulaic thrillers, there is no serial killer or creepy stalker, looming somewhere in the darkness, closing on the heroine step by step and striking the final attack when the film hits its climax.
In Black Swan, the demon that tortures the heroine actually doesn’t exist in the reality. It is all created in heroine’s own mind, by her insecurity of the new role, peer pressure, jealousy, paranoid and maniac seeking for the perfection in art.
In the whole time, the heroine is battling herself. The only person stands in her way is herself. It is a psychological horror movie about artistic obsession and an innocent girl’s cruel metamorphosis into a mature woman. I am pleased to see Black Swan is not dragged down to the regular thriller gutter because the inner struggles are more core-shaking and piercing deeper into humility than outer ones.
Nina (Natila Portman) is a very dedicated ballet dancer in A New York Ballet Company. Although she is 28 years, she still lives in a crowded apartment with her Mom, an ex-ballerina who had to give up her promising career to have Nina. So mom puts a lot of pressure on Nina’s dancing career and becomes overprotective and freakishly controlling when it comes to her daughter’s social life.
Here Nina’s mom is the symbol of asceticism. Lust and sex that once ruined her ballet dream are sinful and destructive in her eyes. Subconsciously, she refuses to let Nina grow up. She calls her my little sweet girl. Nina’s bedroom is full of stuffed animals and pink sheets, like a five-year-old girl’s room.
(Mom's sweet little girl)
In one film scene, when Nina starts to get a suspicious rash on her back where her illusionary black swan feathers will eventually burst out, her mother, citing about Nina's history of scratching, takes out the fingernail clippers and brutally declaws her. This is one of many things that symbolically show how a rigid mother refrains her daughter from developing into a more sexually advanced state.
The ballet company Nina is working with is on the verge of closing down. Its producer Thomas has to cast off the old swan queen Beth and pick Nina as the refreshing face for a new provocative Swan Lake show.
In the traditional Swan Lake story, the innocent princess is trapped in the body of a beautiful swan, waiting for her handsome prince to defeat the devil, break the spell and live happily ever after.
In this new dark version – a black swan, the evil twin sister of the white swan gets introduced into the show to completely overturn the original fairytale. She takes the stage with her sexual power. She seduces away the prince. In the end, the heart broken white swan has no choice but jumps off the cliff to finish all the pain. This tragic love story requires one dancer to play these two contrasting roles at the same time.
With big doe eyes, pure and fragile, Nina is perfect for the white swan. But she can’t pull it off as the seductive black swan. Her techniques are already as perfect as the textbook. However, she lacks passion and sexuality, as Thomas repeatedly gripes about: “You needs to let it go. Attack it! Seduce!”. Frustrated, once in the rehearsal Thomas has to feel Nina up to let her have a taste of what lust is when getting aroused.
Oh my gosh, just having attended the company’s “how to handle harassment at work” course, I really want to tell this Thomas guy, “You’re so gonna have your arrogant ass sued if this happened in our company. “ Maybe in the show business, that is supposedly the way of directors coaching actresses. No wonder “casting couch” (潜规则) is so prevailing in that circle. hehe~~. Sorry for sidetracking a bit. Now back onto our movie review. How can Nina, such a sweet disciplined girl, find that suppressed inner lust spring and get all unleashed out?
(Thomas teaches Nina how to be sensual)
Then there comes a new girl Lily from SF. She is bold, sexy and uninhibited. Although she doesn’t dance accurately, she can dance with the passion required for the black swan. Thomas makes Lily Nina’s understudy. Lily, always in black, like a dark angel sent by Satan, fascinates Nina, not only as a rival but as a role model of a sexual being. For Nina, Lily presents a professional challenge and a personal rebuke.
One night, Nina can’t resist the temptation to have a peek of what kind of life Lily lives after work. She rebels against her mom for the very first time and hangs out with Lily in a downtown nightclub, where they get drunk and drugged. Afterwards these two return to Nina’s room to have some steamy girl-on-girl action with Nina’s livid mom locked outside. This movie's most talked-about scene turns out to be Nina’s another illusion. The next morning, when she arrives at the company late due to the hangover, Nina finds that Lily has replaced her as the swan queen for that day’s dress rehearsal.
(Lily, Nina's rival)
Caught between her predecessor Beth’s abandoned fate and the new rival Lily’s potential threat, Nina’s walls crumble and she starts descending into insanity. She begins to see more and more unnatural and disturbing visions that Lily is after her. Furthermore, the film makes it very difficult to tell whether certain visions are real or simply illusions.
This film is all about tension and beauty paired with extremely disturbing images of sex and violence, including masochism, masturbation and le*****ian actions. These scenes are very intense, but they reveal how Nina molts into a much darker individual by the end.
全剧的高潮，最后的对决: (写这块儿时，忍不住痒痒读上两小段，见笑，click to play）
The curtains up, the lights on, the whole theater packed, the new Swan Lake show finally opens to the public with the overwhelming anticipation. Backstage, in her dressing room, Nina catches Lily, that brazen b*tch, sitting right in her chair like she is the real owner of this room for the swan queen. Once she thinks how Lily has been plotting all the way to steal away her role and how Lily slept with Thomas she secretly has a feeling for, Nina can’t take it any more.
“No one can stand in my way." Rage racing up her heartbeats, anger blazing wildly in her blood shot eyes, Nina pounces over, grasps Lily and thumps her violently against a large dressing mirror. The mirror gets smashed with a huge thud, broken pieces flying everywhere. Nina picks up a sharp shard, and stabs directly into her rival’s abdomen. Blood spurts out. Lily flops. Lily becomes motionless. Lily dies. Nina drags Lily’s dead body into the nearby bathroom and shuts down the door. Blood begins to seep out profusely under the bathroom door. Nina decisively clogs it with a long white towel.
The keyed-up music is hastening the black swan to show up. Now her sworn enemy has been eliminated. Everything should be fine. Nina calms down, straightens up her makeup for a second and then takes the stage with the unprecedented confidence. She leaps, pirouettes, and dances with impeccable movements. As the music reaches its climax, Nina’s black wings burst out of any remaining restrictions into splendid full lengths, flapping powerfully under the dazzling spotlight. The seductive glares emitting from her smoky eyes are so enchanting that capture everyone’s heart. Her blood red lips are so sizzling hot that can burn up every single cell of your body. Wow, she IS the utmost sex goddess. She steals away the dazed prince. She steals the show. She brings down the whole house.
During the play interval, Nina steps up and plants a firm mouth-to-mouth kiss on Thomas. That Casanova (情场老手), her cocky teacher, blushes like a timid Junior High boy kissed by a hot girl in the bustling school hallway.
(Nina's black swan makeup. Check out those feathery tendrils on her hands and arms. )
After her triumphant black swan performance, Nina gets back to the dressing room to change for the last scene - “the death of white swan". To her astonishment, she can’t find any trace of blood there on the floor, not even a single drop. The bath towel she inserted under the door is squeaky clean. Baffled, Nina looks down and finds a piece of glass right into her own belly, redness slowly oozing out. Reality gradually settling in, she hurts herself AGAIN in the hallucination.
She has been doing self-mutilation to release the pressure ever since she gets appointed as the swan queen. She used to scratch that heinous rash on her back badly or peel a long cuticle skin off her finger nails. The only difference this time is that she tortures herself so hard that she almost kills herself. She has never hurt Lily. She has never hurt anyone. All she has been hurting is HERSELF.
Once Nina snaps back into reality, she can’t control herself any more, tears welling up in her self-piteous eyes, her porcelain white face twitching with fear, her scarlet lips shivering like the withered flowers in the chilly fall wind, all kinds of thoughts and feelings crashing into her throbbing small heart.
Music is up again, this time, very sad, very sentimental, calling the swan to its death. In the play, Nina is that heart broken white swan that finally jumps off the cliff for the unattainable love.
In reality, Nina is that persistent ballerina who sacrifices herself seeking for the perfection in ballet. She'd rather take the risk of descent into insanity abyss to achieve her goal than be mediocre.
She is falling down, face up, like a weightless feather drifting in the valley, the blood stain becoming bigger and bigger on her snow white dress… But at least, this time during the falling, she hears the thunderous applause from the audience. They love her. She is not alone there in the darkness. The lights on the ceiling look warm and fuzzy. “It is perfect”. She murmurs to herself. A content smile curls up the corners of her mouth. She has never been so free, so peaceful and so satisfied. She won't care if she dies now.
The tragedy of Nina, and of many young performers and athletes, is that perfection in one area of life has led to sacrifices in many other areas. Since young age, they are trained to become focused on pleasing all the others, parents, coaches or directors but never themselves. The theme of Black Swan is the hidden violence of ballet —the physical violence, and emotional violence too. Nina becomes both victimized and liberated by her crazy fantasies. She’s a contender, but more a martyr to her art.
I am glad and tearful in the end when I see Nina finally makes peace with herself and enjoys the ballet that has cruelly slaved her. Maybe that enjoyment is transcient. For her, it's all worth it...
