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Natalie Portman is Nina, a delightful dancer of the New York City Ballet, still tied to adolescent dreams, the sweetness and inexperience of childhood. Obsessed with technical perfection, dutiful to discipline, she sees her efforts rewarded when Leroy, a demanding choreographer portrayed by a marvelous Vincent Cassel, assigns her the lead role in a revised version of "Swan Lake."
This is where the viewer is overwhelmed by the mirror use of Black and White, which not only represent the clash between Evil and Good but also between morality and instinct, reason and passion, chastity and sex. A clash that each of us experiences within ourselves and that in this film is taken to extremes after a journey into the depths of human nature.
Nina seems to be the perfect choice for the role of Odette, the white swan, an ethereal and romantic creature, but she lacks the sensuality, the dense and dark aura of mystery that surrounds Odile, the black swan, the exact double of the white one.
Nina finds herself looking at Lily, another young dancer, with a mixture of admiration and envy, as she seems to have everything she never had. Spontaneity, carnality, ambiguity.
Madness and darkness come silently, with muffled steps. The stifling apprehensions of her mother, Leroy's evident disappointment, the burning jealousy towards Lily, the uncontrollable desire to achieve perfection drag Nina into a dark journey in search of the black swan within her. A journey that will lead her to a chilling transformation, without mental or physical limits.
The frames of the film run light as the steps of a dancer, yet sharp as small fragments of glass clenched in the palm of a hand. A paranoid, substantial, unsettling story that is, after all, a bit of the story of all of us. Taken to the extreme, romanticized, embellished by the Tchaikovskian setting but still the story of each of us. From the discovery of sexuality to the loss of innocence, up to the forced coexistence between darkness and light. An experience tasted by everyone.
Everything calls back to the theme of the double. Mirrors present in every scene, the use of colors, the rivalry between the two dancers so similar yet so different as they merge together.
A story that is also an arduous journey into the human mind, into dreams, into obsession where truth mixes with mirage, dream with reality, in a triumph of mystery that takes your breath away. A journey made of cuts, deep scars that do not heal, self-harm, broken skin that cracks, scales, turning from the candor of white to black passing through the red of blood.
There is no moral in this work. There is no moralistic vanity of teaching, but only an engaging plot, poetic, sublime. Raw, hard-hitting scenes to confuse our thoughts, to burst our heads with questions.
A jewel of today's cinematic landscape, a romantic psychological thriller with small secrets to uncover, quotes to reveal, and tributes to understand.
"Black Swan" is definitely a film to see, a film with an original plot and a theme, that of ballet, still untouched.
The timeless tragedy, with Odette's exquisite charm, is brought to the stage by the magnificent Natalie Portman, who gives her best by taking us by the hand in the discovery of the dark Odile.
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