BEFORE: From actors I sidestep over to dancers - truth be told, I'm thinking about Comic-Con, where one year I (and several other lucky chaps) had the honor of having Natalie Portman (last seen in "The Other Boleyn Girl") pose for a picture with me. I don't remember which year it was (they all start to run together after a while) but her hair was still very short after shooting "V For Vendetta" so it must have been 2005 or so. I saw her again there in 2010 while promoting "Hesher" - and in just a few more years, the restraining order will expire, and I may be able to talk to her!
Linking from "Venus", Peter O'Toole was also in "The Stunt Man" (which I suppose I need to add to the list eventually) with Barbara Hershey (last seen in "Hoosiers"), who appears in tonight's film.
THE PLOT: 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.
AFTER: I really don't know much about ballet, I've tried to avoid it over the years. But perhaps I should read up on the plot of "Swan Lake". I don't really see how the prince can mistake the black swan for the "identical" white one - aren't they, like, different colors? Even a color-blind person can distinguish between black and white, right?
Turns out this film is pretty black-or-white too. I went into it expecting a bunch of heavy symbolism, or perhaps a "Fight Club"-style mindfuck, but the first hour was pretty boring. Second theory, I noticed that nearly everyone in the film was wearing either white, black or occasionally grey clothing. Ah, it's all about the colors representing people's inner natures, and it's some kind of treatise on good vs. evil. The people wearing grey are the conflicted ones, I guess - or the people in transition states.
So it's white swan vs. black swan, good vs. evil - but the lead dancer has to play both roles (since they are "identical", ha!) so the main character has to get in touch with her inner bitch, in order to dance like the Black Swan would. (Really, it turns out she's already a whiny bitch, so she's halfway there - she just has to stop whining and keep the bitchy part) The show's choreographer suggests that she go home and free herself by, umm, relieving the tension, if you follow me.
But herein lies a fallacy - why is the character only able to free her dance moves once she is sexually liberated? How does touching herself enable her to play an evil character - because the act itself is inherently "evil"? Nonsense. How is sexual freedom evil? Isn't that a bit simplistic - good girls don't, and bad girls do? Shouldn't we, as a society, be beyond the madonna/whore stereotypes by now? Why is a woman either a virgin or a slut, with no in-between? Saying a woman can't play a sexual character without the act itself is like saying an actor can't play a doctor on TV if he's never performed surgery.
As in Darren Aronofsky's other film, "Requiem For a Dream", once a character starts drinking, or taking drugs, or having sex, it becomes the start of a long, downward spiral that ends in personal ruin. Or madness, in this case.
There's a strong suggestion here that another character in the film may just be a manifestation of the lead's imagination, or represent an aspect of her personality (Aha! "Fight Club"! I knew it!) but if that's the case, the pieces don't really fit here. Perhaps that character is only imaginary part of the time - but that doesn't help the audience figure out what (or perhaps who) is real, and what isn't. Why bring up the possibility that a character is imaginary, and then prove that to be impossible?
I can sort of justify it in the love scene between them (you know the one...) - but if they're the same character, isn't she just making out with herself? And if she sees that character having sex with a man, is she somehow just watching herself do that, from afar? It's impossible and quite contradictory, but it seems to be the gist of things, so I can't just ignore it.
And if the character IS imaginary, is it supposed to be her evil side asserting itself and trying to take control? And if not, then what exactly DOES it all mean? Too darn many times when I didn't know what was real, and what wasn't. Is it all a metaphor? Is life otherwise devoid of meaning? Is nothing real, are we all just brains floating in giant jars, receiving stimuli? You feel it too, right? Or maybe they were just going for "arty" and "oblique".
Also starring Mila Kunis (last seen in "The Book of Eli"), Vincent Cassel (last seen in "Jefferson in Paris"), Winona Ryder (last seen in "Reality Bites").
RATING: 6 out of 10 mirrors
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