Aronofsky takes flight with Black Swan

A ballet horror film. It’s not a term commonly thrown around, but that’s what always-evolving director Darren Aronofsky has made in his latest feature Black Swan. The opening sequence alludes to what awaits audiences – both terror and beauty – as Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) dances a captivating ballet solo before being confronted by a demon. Alas it is all a dream, as once Nina awakes we are jostled into her life as a professional dancer at an American ballet company.

She is something of a kidult, with a bedroom resembling that of a 12-year-old Taylor Swift fan and gets tucked-in by her domineering mother (Barbara Hershey) – who she lives with - every night. But she is also ambitious and when it’s announced the company’s principal dancer (Winona Ryder) is going into a reluctant retirement, she sees an opportunity. Nina campaigns for the role of the Swan Queen in their upcoming take on Swan Lake. But landing the part is just the beginning of her problems. Although her “sweet girl” personality perfectly encompasses the White Swan, she has trouble as the seductive and evil Black Swan, leading to increasing pressure from the director (Vincent Cassel). As Nina becomes obsessed with trying to be “perfect” and find a darker side of herself, the line between reality and psychosis starts to pirouette out of her control. Black Swan is tipped as one of the films to lead the Academy Award nominations this month (it’s already up for four Golden Globes) and it’s easy to see why. It’s a majestic spectacle that examines the nature of ambition and how one’s personal demons can become literal. Darren Aronofsky is a director to be admired; from Requiem For A Dream and The Wrestler to executive producing fellow Oscar favourite The Fighter and his next project – the Wolverine sequel - he never does two films alike. It was a brave choice to make a film that wavers between dance drama, psychological thriller and full-blown horror, but it pays off. While others would have stumbled trying to capture the complexity and detail of ballet routines, he takes it with aplomb and plunges the camera deep within the sea of dancers, weaving us in and around their movements.

As much as the spectacular ballet and stunning costumes are engrossing, it’s the character development and unexpected thrills that draw you in. Portman’s portrayal of Nina is particularly absorbing and as she plunges deeper into madness, you’re dragged down with her. Like Aronofsky’s use of imagery throughout, Nina too is black and white, yin and yang, with Portman managing to be both fragile and terrifying. Acclaimed French actor Cassel is also superb, along with the ensemble cast in Ryder, Hershey and Mila Kunis (below) as a wild child and rival within the company.Unfortunately Black Swan is weighed down slightly by some ballet movie clichés, such as the bulimia moments, cattiness and stage parent/demanding director stereotypes. Like Aronofsky’s Requiem, it’s also brutally humourless, with Kunis providing the closest thing to a reprieve from the dark subject matter.

There hasn’t been an accessible ballet horror film since Italian horror filmmaker Dario Argento’s cult classic Suspiria in 1977, and while it’s sub-genre that will never exist outside of the sub, Black Swan makes the most of a rarely danced stage. It has been thrown into the same sentence as Oscar favourite; Christopher Nolan’s Inception, which was a concept-driven film, supported by great performances while Black Swan is a character-driven film, supported by great dancing. It takes the audience places few would dare to go and is ultimately an exercise in bravery as not only Aronofsky, but his entire cast (especially Portman), took huge risks to make this confronting and at times controversial film. Black Swan is out January 20.