Ok, I'll say it. My co-author Andy has gone WAY too far in his demolition of Black Swan. What a ass!**
Andy on point for some of it: the film is definitely overrated. It isn't five-star material by any means. And the "darkness was in you all along" message was obvious from the beginning and unsatisfyingly developed by the end. Yes, the muff-diving was probably included to strike up controversy rather than for 'artistic reasons'. Much of the symbolism was indeed contrived.
But if you use your "brain cells to rub together", it's quite easy to see past this.
Given its obviousness, I didn't even take the black/white rubbish to be the central point of the film. To me it was a convincing and scary portrait of an artistic industry, one where the gap between the public veneer (the art) and the dirty underbelly (the politics) is perhaps greater than any other. As with Aronofsky's other work, the atmosphere created was completely suffocating, and intentionally so, creating an air of inevitable tragedy that is true to the Greek meaning of the word. Aside from the ballet antics, Portman's performance contributed masterfully to this. Throughout I was hoping Nina would take the many outs offered her, but watching the slow subsuming of nervousness by psychosis in Portman's performance was, probably, quite true to real life.
Yes, if all films must do everything well to be any good, then this film sucks. But that's a perfectionist standard, and I took the central message of the film to be: all perfectionists can use a reminder of the potential self-destructiveness of this trait now and then.
Black Swan gets a thumbs up from me.
** My retort was suspended for a while after allegations emerged that Portman danced much less than we were led to believe, but that story is going nowhere conclusive so it's time for me to hit back.
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