my assessment of Black Swan

[intertribal]

This will be longer than my assessment of True Grit, because this one had a way greater emotional impact on me.  Whereas True Grit was like a friendly slap on the back, Black Swan was like a punch in the face.

I thought this wasn't really about ballet at all - I read it as pretty clearly about "the young woman in society."  All the contrary messages that Natalie Portman's character Nina receives - be strong, except your weakness is perfect; be sexual, but then you're a whore; live a little but keep up your obligations; you're sick but how good that you lost weight; if you're the chosen one it means you're great and special but everyone will hate you; be perfect, but lose control; be the White Swan and the Black Swan (and there are only two options!) - are not reserved for ballerinas, let me put it that way.  I thought Portman did a great job exemplifying the uncertainty and awkwardness that often results from living in this pressure cooker.  I really felt for and empathized with her character, which meant I had a strong emotional connection to the movie as a whole.  I don't know if director Darren Aronofsky sort of fell into doing more than he thought he was doing (it sounds like he thought he was making a movie about how women are jealous of each other and back-stabbingly competitive), but I liked the result.  I really enjoyed the ballet scenes, especially the final surreal performance of Swan Lake at the end, but I did ultimately think that ballet was just a medium.  Just like each movie in the South Korean Whispering Corridors series (which fixates on similar topics) uses a different medium to explore the same subjects - ballet, art, choir, pick your poison - and by the way, Whispering Corridors: Wishing Stairs is the ballet movie, and it's pretty good and creepy.

Speaking of creepy, I liked the way they handled the "creepy scenes."  I loved that they didn't pause to explain or dwell on them - lets you sit there in the moment, with Portman's character and the only information she has - but I'm a fan of that kind of thing: weaving the "supernatural" so much into the fabric of the text that you can't differentiate it as supernatural at all, and you're just living in a world where reflections and paintings move on their own.  My favorite effect was definitely the whites of Portman's eyes turning red.

I think any child psychologist and anyone who's read Reviving Ophelia or Ophelia Speaks and such will be able to see each development in the movie coming - for one, all the language of "control" and "perfection" has got to be straight out of some How To Deal With Adolescent Girls handbook, special emphasis on the Eating Disorders and Self-Harm chapters.  Hell, "Perfect" is even an Alanis Morissette song: "Be a good girl/ You gotta try a little harder/ That simply wasn't good enough/ To make us proud."  It's old stuff to me - I was a teenaged girl not too long ago, and I went to a girls' college where I roomed with perfectionist ballerinas, one of whom had a textbook perfect-and-skinny mother as well as an eating disorder - although I grant that I was an over-analytical teenager, but also possessing of perfectionist impulses, especially when it came to grades and pleasing teachers (but not being a teacher's pet! it's a delicate balance), keenly aware of judgment and competition, and highly critical/hateful of my appearance and body.  Another of my roommates (not the ballerina) and I used to rock out to Courtney Love (she was the one who first recommended this movie to me).  This movie didn't "teach me" anything, although having it all bundled together and thrown in my face was a fairly exhausting experience.  I don't know how much of it is "old stuff" to people who are not so close to the issue, though, so for that reason I'm glad it's getting good reviews and the theater was packed with confused people laughing nervously during the masturbation scenes.  Or maybe people are aware, but think "well, not my daughter"?  Yeah, I've got news for you, folks.

Comments

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Well, it's like a Shakespeare romanti-comedy except with Bad Ending where the misunderstandings are not resolved and Rocks Fall, etc. (seriously, it fills me with the same discomfort as Much Ado About Nothing). I mean, it is Odette's story - the whole thing is orchestrated so Odette can't break free of her curse - but no, she has no agency. The Prince tries to have a confrontation with Bad Wizard Guy but it doesn't work.

The whole thing is set up as a No Win scenario, though, one that confrontation can't resolve. Odette's fucked because the Prince swears eternal love to Odile (after swearing it to Odette), and thus even if Odette came storming in, the Prince wouldn't be able to save her, cuz he's verbally betrayed her, and now she has to be a swan forever (these are pretty, uh, powerful curses). But I guess the resolution is the Heavenly HEA, since the Prince commits suicide after her and they go to heaven. Guess suicide ain't sinning in this world.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

No, not at all. Suicide is beautiful (in ballet).

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

And in Japanese horror. :P

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

True dat!

Okay, so I finally finished watching it, and...I think the thing that rings least true for me is that Nina seems to take so incredibly little joy in what she does. Yes, ballet dancers treat themselves badly, in a lot of ways, but no more or less than many other dancers/athletes. They understand that their window of opportunity is small and their bodies will break down, but the lure isn't just being tiny and girly and perfect--the lure is that they can literally do things no one else can do. And NIna is just...I mean, she's SO crazy, right from the beginning, and so utterly strained and weird and joyless, I don't really understand how she manages to keep her place in the company (which she's had for some time, if you believe her Mom). And the only reason I can see Tomas(?) promoting her like this is that his fragility fetish gets pinged--but OTOH, how can you organize an entire headline show around a girl who can barely make it to work in the morning? Maybe it's my being-around-the-theatre-all-my-life bullshit-o-meter, but I have trouble doing the "it's opera!" equation in my head, and it kept me from enjoying the film the way I wanted to.

That said, if people think Portman's performance is one-note, that ain't really her fault--one note is all Aronofsky gave her to play, and she did it well. Plus, here and there--when the Black Swan comes out--you can see other stuff. I just wish she had more time to enjoy her victory.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Interesting. It's certainly true that she doesn't have much time to enjoy her victory, but I have to say that I didn't find her that crazy (but maybe that gives you some impression of what I'm like, heh). I feel like she's maladjusted, but there was a lot about her that I could relate to, which is why I used to have the gif icon of her biting her nails. And other people I have known my age as well. I do agree, however, that she doesn't take much joy in it. I always got the impression that her mom was the driving force behind her doing ballet at all - anyway, I think that's why a lot of people point to the scene where she calls her mother after getting the lead as a highlight, because she does show joy there that's nonetheless totally tied to her mother's approval and totally, I don't know, vulnerable (instead of ferocious)?