“Black Swan” was nominated for five Oscars – Natalie Portman won for best actress. FILMSTARTS author Lars-Christian Daniels recommends that you stream the thriller, which is included in your Amazon Prime Video flat rate subscription starting today.
… and of course I was completely wrong with this assessment. “Black Swan” is more of a horror film than a classic dance film. And anyone who approaches him with false hope of the latter is definitely looking at the wrong thing. The work of “The Whale”-Director Aronofsky is rather a disturbing and visually impressive psychological thriller, in which the virtuoso staged ballet rehearsals form the narrative framework for the rousing story and a highly emotional finale.
From today you can watch “Black Swan” at no additional cost with a flat rate subscription Amazon Prime Video streaming. Alternatively, the FSK 16 title can also be seen in the Disney+* program. Or you can get it on Blu-ray/DVD*.
“Black Swan” bei Amazon Prime Video*
That’s what “Black Swan” is about
A respected New York ballet company is planning a new production of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake.” Although the ambitious and sensitive ballerina Nina (Natalie Portman) trains harder than anyone else in the group, she doesn’t really believe in her great chance of winning the leading role. The eccentric director Thomas (Vincent Cassel) wants to have the white and black swan performed by the same dancer, but only trusts Nina with the white swan. When she fails at a rehearsal, her dream seems to have finally shattered – much to the disappointment of her mother Erica (Barbara Hershey), who used to be a ballerina herself but was nowhere near as successful as her daughter.
When Nina tries to talk to Thomas again, he suddenly harasses her. She rejects him painfully. The director realizes that Nina can express herself as powerfully and energetically as he wants for the black swan – and promptly casts her in the leading role. For Nina, however, this is the start of a nightmare that gets worse every day: the ballerina is under enormous psychological pressure and is becoming increasingly paranoid. She is soon plagued by terrible hallucinations. And there is also the similarly talented Lily (Mila Kunis), who also had her sights set on the leading role and has Thomas wrapped around her finger…
Twentieth Century Fox Is she up to the challenge? Nina (Natalie Portman) lands the coveted leading role as the white and black swan.
The fact that “Black Swan”, as outlined at the beginning, is not a harmless dance film is revealed in the opening minutes. The film begins with Nina doing lonely pirouettes on stage in a bright white swan outfit to the famous Tchaikovsky sounds. There is no audience in sight. Their opening dance is reminiscent of a music box figure – a metaphor that is taken up later. Then a man dressed in black joins her. The music suddenly becomes dramatic, almost booming. He transforms into a black-feathered horror figure and whirls it through the air as he dances. Her look becomes panicked: the woman is afraid. When it’s over, she looks relieved. Then Nina wakes up.
Just an introductory nightmare, but at the same time a foretaste of what’s to come. The dark imagery, which has nothing in common with the supposedly ideal, glittering world of ballet, runs like a common thread through the film. Likewise the visual play with light and shadow, with black and white, the central optical contradiction from “Swan Lake”. It often finds its counterpart in the production design, for example in Thomas’ apartment or Nina’s bathroom. The personified innocence is defenseless against the powerful and invasive director; Greetings from the Weinstein scandal and the #metoo movement.
If it hurts to watch
The rigors of the tough, physically demanding ballet sport are captured in a similarly ruthless way, and we suffer with Nina. Natalie Portman (“Leon – The Professional”), who rightly won an Oscar and who danced ballet as a child and trained for a year for the demanding leading role, embodies her brilliantly. Sometimes you can barely look. Nina’s toes and nails are bloody and bruised, her ligaments and bones are at their worst. Every burger is a mortal sin. There is envy and resentment among the dancers. And as if that wasn’t enough, Nina is under the thumb of her domineering mother, who is living out her own, never-realized dream of the big spotlight on her daughter. That’s a cliche, but it’s also a reality in sports like ballet or figure skating.
Twentieth Century Fox
Dirty Dancing in Ballerinas: Nina (Natalie Portman) und Thomas (Vincent Cassel).
In general, the apartment in which Nina (still) lives with her strict mother is a setting that is as exciting as it is oppressive, which at the same time saved the budget of the production, which only cost 13 million dollars: Darren Aronofsky (“The Wrestler”), who with ” Black Swan” opened the 67th Venice Film Festival, creates a cramped, claustrophobic atmospherefrom which the unstable Nina only escapes by going to ballet rehearsal. Here and there, however, the filmmaker lays it on a bit thick: Nina’s room, for example, is filled with cuddly toys, which she throws into the garbage chute in frustration at some point when her character’s metamorphosis from innocent girl to mature woman demands it. This can be told more subtly.
The same applies to the character structure: the decidedly relaxed rival Lily only wears black and is the counterpart to the frigid Nina – a variation on the “Swan Lake” plot. The roles are clearly assigned. The dancer, who came from San Francisco, appears relaxed instead of stubborn, wears a large wing tattoo on her back, takes drugs and even speaks back to the toxic Thomas instead of being obedient and submissive like Nina. She has more experience with men, but also with manipulation. The closer the two get, the more unsure we are as to whether Lily will skillfully outcompete her competitor or whether the paranoid Nina will finally lose her mind. An attractive game of confusion, albeit without any major surprises.
Truth or delusion?
It is no coincidence that Darren Aronofsky was inspired by Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novella “The Double” (which was filmed a short time later as “The Double” with Jesse Eisenberg in the lead role), because the loss of one’s own identity and world also drives the events in ” Black Swan”. The doppelganger motif and the trick with creepy reflections that suddenly no longer do the same thing as their counterparts are a much-tried horror technique, but are presented incredibly effectively here. There are also a few crisp jump scares and dark visions that mix with the real here and now: strong horror cinema that is hinted at early on and finally breaks through in the last third of the film.
And there is the dramaturgically expected but dramatically staged and disturbing finale, which can be discussed in the aftermath: “Black Swan” leaves a few questions unanswered in the final chord and offers scope for interpretation. What really happened, what did Nina just imagine? Anyone who enjoys such mind games should not miss the ambiguous psychological thriller, which is interspersed with plenty of horror elements and also has a strong supporting cast.
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This is an updated republication of an article that previously appeared on FILMSTARTS.
