Black Swan

Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Kassel, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Rating: ***

arren Aronofsky’s Black Swan got Natalie Portman the best actress Oscar. However, more than the performances—all consistently competent—the film grabs you for its beguiling, intriguing story-telling. Nothing is spelt out; the text is left open to many interpretations, audiences can read several meanings into it. Portman is Nina, a frail, sweet, naive ballerina, with deep, perennially pained eyes. She is still a girl under her mother’s thumb, in a pink-’n-white world of soft toys. Her director (Cassel) wants Nina to play both the white and black swan in Swan Lake. However, while he thinks she is perfect as the white swan, she has to search hard for the evil twin within herself. The film is about arts and aesthetics: how passion is the driving force of a true artiste than perfection. As Cassel tells Nina, she has to let go and lose herself, transcend and surprise. It holds true for her repressed personality too. She has to ‘touch herself’ to let go of her frigidity, and has to embrace recklessness for a  rounded personality. Much of these thoughts are communicated through Matthew Libatique’s cinematography. From the beauty of ballet to Nina’s hallucinations, anxieties and breakdown, his images say it better than words.