A number of reviews for Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan have showed up online, so I thought I’d pull them all together and package them into a post for you. The film has been chosen to open the 2010 Venice International Film Festival and the recently released trailer is a thing of exquisite beauty.
Black Swan centers on Nina (Portman), a ballerina in a New York City ballet company, whose life, like all those in her profession, is completely consumed with dance. She lives with her obsessive former ballerina mother Erica (Hershey) who exerts a suffocating control over her. When artistic director Thomas Leroy (Cassel) decides to replace prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Ryder) for the opening production of their new season, Swan Lake, Nina is his first choice. But Nina has competition: a new dancer, Lily (Kunis), who impresses Leroy as well. Swan Lake requires a dancer who can play both the White Swan with innocence and grace, and the Black Swan, who represents guile and sensuality. Nina fits the White Swan role perfectly but Lily is the personification of the Black Swan. As the two young dancers expand their rivalry into a twisted friendship, Nina begins to get more in touch with her dark side – a recklessness that threatens to destroy her.
Black Swan features a fantastic cast, including Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Winona Ryder and Sebastian Stan.
Below are a few of the early reviews that have been found online.
Warning: The reviews below are mostly spoiler-free, but if you wish to enjoy the film without any pre-conceived ideas, then I suggest you look away now.
Variety:
“Aronofsky seems to be operating more in the vein of early Roman Polanski or David Cronenberg at his most operatic.” … “A wicked, sexy and ultimately devastating study of a young dancer’s all-consuming ambition,” … “Aronofsky and costume designer Amy Westcott are none too subtle with the film’s symbolism, dressing Nina in innocent white outfits while those around her wear darker and considerably more ominous colors. These exaggerated stylistic choices (somewhat at odds with Aronofsky’s documentary-like sense of detail and Matthew Libatique’s handheld shooting style) extend to the production design as well, adding yet another motif: Reflective surfaces, mostly mirrors, offer fleeting glimpses of Nina’s other half.” … “Coupled with Clint Mansell’s score, which expands upon Tchaikovsky’s original “Swan Lake” compositions to suggest something considerably more macabre (further aided by proper horror-movie sound design), the result is an unsettling yet ultimately intuitive blend of classical and contempo techniques.”
Obsessed with Film:
“Best film I’ve seen all year.”
“Left me devastated, excited, tense and emotionally drained. Tarantino will be a fool if he doesn’t give this the Golden Lion (unless something even better is coming up!). Aronofsky has made his first masterpiece and Portman must now be favourite for the Oscar.”
“If the film is ultimately too unsettling to snag main prizes, it has at least one nomination in the bag for lead actress Natalie Portman who gives one of “those” performances, transforming herself after ten months of training into an accomplished ballerina, almost uncomfortable to watch as she consumes her difficult role….like Catherine Deneuve in ‘Repulsion’ or Mia Farrow in ‘Rosemary’s Baby,’ she captures the confusion of a repressed young woman thrown into a world of danger and temptation with frightening veracity.”
“A contemporary fairy tale of sorts: the story of a little girl, in the fierce grip of controlling adults, who wants nothing more than to dance, and learns that she must exchange part of herself for the opportunity….that’s only after it has successfully masqueraded as a taut, witty and wickedly kinky thriller that pulls off the tricky double-bluff of following precisely the narrative course one has mapped out for it, yet emerging as all the more surprising for that adherence.”
The Hollywood Reporter:
“Trying to coax a horror-thriller out of the world of ballet doesn’t begin to work for Darren Aronofsky.” … “The movie is so damn out-there in every way that you can’t help admiring Aronofsky for daring to be so very, very absurd.” … n instant guilty pleasure, a gorgeously shot, visually complex film whose badness is what’s so good about it. You might howl at the sheer audacity of mixing mental illness with the body-fatiguing, mind-numbing rigors of ballet, but its lurid imagery and a hellcat competition between two rival dancers is pretty irresistible. Certain to divide audiences, “Swan” won’t lack for controversy.” … “Portman, who has danced but is no ballerina, does a more than credible job in the big dance numbers and the tough rehearsals that are so essential to the film. In her acting, too, you sense she has bravely ventured out of her comfort zone to play a character slowly losing sight of herself. It’s a bravura performance.” … “Kunis makes a perfect alternate to Portman, equally as lithe and dark but a smirk of self-assurance in place of Portman’s wide-eyed fearfulness. Indeed, White Swan/Black Swan dynamics almost work, but the horror-movie nonsense drags everything down the rabbit hole of preposterousness.”
IndieWire:
“Resembling a “Red Shoes” on acid, “Black Swan” takes the idea of giving one’s all for art to a morbid extreme. Applying the gritty handheld technique he successfully employed in the working class environs of “The Wrestler” to the rarefied domain of classical ballet, Darren Aronofsky swooningly explores the high tension neuroses and sexual psychodrama of a ballerina on the brink of simultaneous triumph and breakdown. With Natalie Portman, in the demanding leading role, equaling her director in unquestioned commitment, the central issue for the viewer is how far one is willing to follow the film down the road to oblivion for art’s sake.”
Black Swan will open the Venice International Film Festival tonight and, while a UK release date hasn’t been confirmed yet, it’s out in the US on 1 December.
