MOVIE REVIEW: BLACK SWAN

Six of Seven Cows

As I write this Natalie Portman is winning a Golden Globe award for her beautiful, heartbreaking portrayal of the psychologically shattered ballerina in Black Swan. That is as it should be: You’ll not see a more deserving performance, and there is only a very small handful of actresses that might have had any chance of pulling it off.

            

 If this were only a review of her performance it might be my first seven-cow review. But this is a review of the film Black Swan, which is something completely different and more vexing.

             

Black Swan is a beautiful and tragic film. It is also terribly sad, even depressing, and it makes no attempt to mitigate the bleak curtain it pulls around itself. From the opening moments Portman’s character, Nina, is revealed as being too fragile for the world she inhabits. She is in essence a beautiful object, already falling, and there is no one near enough or inclined to catch her before she shatters.

            

 Nina is lost in a hallucinatory paranoia that is immediately disturbing and only accelerates with each passing frame, though not with the titillating suspense of a horror film. This is not a horror film, and it is not a thriller: It is an uncommonly authentic portrayal of a psyche shattering, and there is never a moment’s hope that it will not shatter. Subsequently it is not especially fun to watch.

           

I honestly don’t know what I think about that.

             

As a peek behind the curtains of the world of ballet I found Black Swan to be fascinating, and the dancing is often breathtaking. That Portman obviously did much of it herself is astounding; this could not possibly have been her first time in a pair of ballet shoes. Her Golden Globe will almost certainly be accompanied by an Oscar in due course, and her artistic credentials will never be in doubt.

            
 There is some language in Black Swan, and sex as well, which makes it inappropriate for most parents. Other than that it will also bore your kids out of their skull. Everyone else will probably be profoundly saddened by the film, and since I’m often profoundly saddened by life in general that’s not something I’m usually looking for in a movie. Still, it is beautifully shot, choreographed, and acted, so I guess it’s for you to decide. I give Black Swan six suicidal cows