Curmudgeon Reviews: Black Swan

IMDB describes: "A ballet dancer wins the lead in "Swan Lake" and is perfect for the role of the delicate White Swan - Princess Odette - but slowly loses her mind as she becomes more and more like Odile the Black Swan, daughter of an evil magician." That's probably a fair synopsis, although it does entirely manage to avoid discussion of Natalie Portman's crotch. Given the gratuitous number of times the film returned to focus on that region, I would almost have expected it to get a billing all its own.

I am somewhat at a loss to understand the critical acclaim which has followed this film, particularly when compared with the masterful character work in The King's Speech. It manages to bewilder and disturb audiences with what appears to be a spectacular attempt to be artsier-than-thou. This film was alienating and mawkish at worst, and simply pretty and awkward at best. It's that hipster kid at the party who wants to argue with you about how he was a hipster before anyone else even knew what it was.

It's not trendy to diss this film, as emaciated Natalie Portman (it's amazing how malnourishment can age a person) goes somewhat brilliantly mad, as illustrated by visceral and downright gory special effects that are actually painful to watch, and perhaps the most cringeworthy and entirely gratuitous female masturbation portrayed on screen in any cinema where the seats aren't hosed down after a screening.

It is a film that wants very badly to be an artistic, interesting masterpiece, but it ends up being awkwardly overplayed, painful to watch, and unrewarding as a cinema experience. At times, Portman's portrayal shines, but almost as often we are left with the wooden character familiar to those who followed her Star Wars prequel days. There is a sense that with the loss of a quarter of her body weight and presumably intense dance training that the recognition of her acting in this film is more a reflection on the hard work that went into the role, much like Nicole Kidman's having to wear a false ugly nose to play Virginia Woolf, rather than any sine qua brilliant performance.

Try as it might, it lacks the depth and substance a film so wholly unentertaining requires. The symbolism is obvious and overplayed, while the narrative within a narrative (the Swan Lake motif) provides no interesting twist. Broken music box ballet dancers. The breaking in of ballet shoes. The children's toys and single bed. The red lipstick. The perfect bun which becomes disarrayed as the character begins to fall apart. This film stabs you in the eyes with the sorts of screamingly obvious film techniques studied to death in high schools across the country, without once engaging on a deeper level.

The gore was realistic and visceral - blood, tearing skin, broken bones, scar-tissue - enough to be uncomfortable viewing. This too was overdone, gratuitous, and seemed to lack a deeper narrative point beyond shock value and the illustration of Portman's character's fading grasp of reality.

Add to this, the characters are often shrill and not especially likeable. There is a tendency toward downward spirals of mental stability rather than any sort of development. With one possible exception, they are so superficial that despite the fairly unpleasantly violent events which occur to them, they evoke little sympathy. For example, the girl next to me audibly cheered when one of them was stabbed in the face with a nail file, which was a sentiment I could sympathise with. The audience members find themselves putting not insubstantial amounts of effort into the film in the form of suspension of disbelief, for minimal reward. I won't spoil the ending any more than the producer did, suffice to say 'trite and cliched' would be a generous description. Frustrating.


High points
~The highest point of the film, for me, was the mild ironic value of Winona Ryder's character having some crap stolen from her. That's right, petty larceny for the no longer especially topical inadvertent LOL. The film so failed to transport me that by this stage the recollection of Ryder's shoplifting charges was something my brain did to amuse itself while this film failed to engage it with anything of substance.

~The drug trip that lasted the entire rest of the film. One can only assume that they shared the good stuff with some of the reviewers/awards panels floating about. Honestly, honey, when your reality shifts that quickly and remains that warped for so long, you need to eat a sandwich or something and try not to puke up every piece of sustenance that crosses your lips. Which reminds me...

~Bravo to the ballet film for the vague social policy win in the example that eating disorders aren't fun, and they aren't clever. This was probably entirely inadvertent, but it is nevertheless a positive thing. Oh yes, thinspired fourteen year olds, do you really want to look fifty and mummified when you're supposed to be playing a character in their early twenties? Purging's not so fun now, is it?

~The film was, I must concede, visually spectacular at times, with costuming and make-up especially well done, but these were features which occasionally arrested my attention, long enough to make it vividly apparent that the rest of the film was quite disappointing.

~The biggest highlight? The end credits. This was a film which made you appreciate life and never want to waste one hundred and eight minutes of it in such frustratingly aimless pursuit ever again.