Arnofsky's Black Swan

Darren Arnofsky is a passionate man, something you can see immediately in his films and when he gives interviews. He does not release too often, being frugal with his interests and talents, but it does his productions a lot of good. They are always masterfully written, touching an ambiguous, sweeping subject that has to be a challenge to represent on screen, like the nature of addiction (Requiem for a Dream) or struggle to combat cancer and save love (The Fountain).

In his latest effort, entitled Black Swan, he sets about investigating the sacrifice an artist has to make to produce a mesmerizing, divine performance. In a story that brings to mind early Roman Polanski's films, like Tenant or Repulsion, he traces one young ballerina's efforts to get a double role of the swan queen in Tschaikovsky's classic ballet and then her psychological decline as she becomes obsessed by the task she's faced with. Natalie Portman breathes life into her character, lending credibility to multiple transformations she has to go through in preparation for the premiere, going from the disappointment of being an eternal underachiever, to the elation of being picked as prima ballerina to decent into madness as she puts everything she has into the role trying to live up to expectations.

Expectations towards a performance artist is another fascinating theme in Black Swan and Arnofsky turns this rather complex and, at best, niche topic into a chilling psychological thriller. Trapped by her own ambitions, twisted pressure from her mother, herself an unfulfilled ballet star seeking vicarious achievement, envy of her fellow company members and demanding visions of the maestro, she gradually loses herself and plummets into madness. At some point, it is hard to tell her haunting hallucinations from reality, her inner universe of a conflicted, oversensitive artist and the eluding normalcy of the day-to-day world.

Black Swan is reported to have achieved an instant cult status in the ballet community. A cautionary tale that features sexual exploitation, eating disorders, stress injuries and enormous peer pressure ballerinas are subject to, it holds up a mirror to the darker side of the trade according to many insiders.

from NYT:
. to require nothing but total submission to the craft
. to peel patches of skin from your fingers
. psychological torture
. a kind of discipline and dedication that can flip into obsession
. make your body into something otherworldly
. an increasingly crowded head
. lookalikes, mirrored images, unhinged visions
. visceral = profound (z trzewi)
. a cineaste = a cinema enthusiast
. a martyr to her art
. to explore human extremes
. predilection = preference, tendency
. the artistics pursuit of the ideal
. a sexcapade = an illicit affair
. to opt for grit over gloss
. as sharply defined as a picket fence
. an adult guardian