Have You Heard That Black Swan Is The Word?

Black Swan is Darren Aronofsky's best movie to date. So far he's ventured to the extremes of arthouse with The Fountain and of gritty human drama too with The Wrester...not to mention the inbetween weirdness of Requiem For A Dream. Black Swan inhabits the middle ground, telling the story of Nina, an ambitious ballerina who's given the plum assignment of performing the lead in a presigious reworking of the ballet Swan Lake. However Nina is required to play both the White Swan (a task to which she's paricularly well suited) and the vivacious Black Swan (the emotional understanding of which is unfamilar to control-freak Nina).

As Nina struggles with the practicing and development of her performance as The Black Swan, she's troubled by various characters that intersect her life. Her smoothering, over-protective mother (Barbara Hershey) who projects her lost career ambitions onto her daughter, Vincent Cassel's creepy, manipulative director who may or may not be taking advantage of Nina for his own gratification and Mila Kunis' carefree spirit who is next in line for Nina's star role should she not be up for it. These stresses begin to manifest themselves in the form of physical aislments and possible hallicinations which haunt Nina.

The thing is the audience is never aware of whether what's going on in Nina's naive and paranoid mind is real. For many, this ambiguity will make them hate Black Swan, much as the final shot of Inception planted ambiguity to great critical commotion. But that's why it's such a good movie. Nina doesn't know what's going on either, and by experiencing the surreal imagery through her eyes we can better understand her fears and frustrations.

While the supporting cast are all excellent, this is Natalie Portman's film through and through. Not only has Portman severely lost weight for her role as a ballerina (the gaunt look helps sell Nina's frailty) but she loses herself inside the part. Nina is reserved, frightened and unsure of herself much of the time and Portman delivers this side of Nina with conviction. But as her journey towards understanding The Black Swan progresses we gradually see a more agressive and independant side to Nina; Portman makes the transformation look effortless. This is your Oscar frontrunner, right here.

Despite the radically different settings and opposing styles in direction, Aronofsky's The Wrestler is similarly tragic to Black SWan in it's story and themes. Both build to a point where the main character has achieved what they want, and embraced the consequences of that decision, dire though that may be. Neither film may be an easy watch, delivering a visual and emotional rollercoaster, but they're some of the most original and riviting movies around in the last decade. Here's hoping the Acadamy are taking notice in 2011.