Thriller Thursdays Black Swan: Why we need to meet our darkest selves

Intro: In our weekly column, Thriller Thursdays, we recommend specially-curated thrillers that’ll send a familiar chill down your spine.

Early in the film Black Swan, Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) encounters herself walking towards her dressed in black and looking askance at her, with a smile playing on her lips. The question is: what is the conversation which ensues? Is there an internal fight or a talk to recognise, acknowledge and accept the different, often darker side? Or is it better to shy away from having a dialogue?

Black Swan asks these questions, surreally, inside the head and heart of an emotionally overwrought and totally-on-the-edge girl.

Nina is a New York City ballerina living with her overbearing mother Erica (Barbara Hershey). The prima ballerina Elizabeth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) is being replaced for the opening production of Swan Lake. Nina is the favourite, but there is a new dancer named Lily (Mila Kunis) who is impressive as well. Nina fits the role of the beautiful, fearful and fragile White Swan perfectly. However, she cannot get the part of the Black Swan right, unlike Lily, who seems to be acing the role with consummate ease.

And then, life’s countless pressures start taking a toll on Nina– her mother’s domineering character, her co-dancers snideness, the seduction of freedom that Lily provides, the extreme tension of delivering what is expected of her, and, above all, her very own lonely fragility. She is perfect in her dance technique but is unable to muster the abandon which would help her transcend technique into genius.

In an episode of the original Star Trek series, Captain Kirk is split into two persons – one who embodies all that is good in him, and the other who has all the evil of his being. The all-good person is a failure as a Captain. Whereas, his evil side keeps on exhorting the good one to be ruthless so that the mission could be accomplished. Ultimately, both the Captains unite, and the true leader that Captain Kirk was, finally emerges.

The truth is that often what pushes us to go beyond our own boundaries is the appearance of a doppelganger, who has no qualms to cross borders. For Nina, Lily is a competitor, a revelation and a mirror like no other.

In an episode of the original Star Trek series, Captain Kirk is split into two persons – one who embodies all that is good in him, and the other who has all the evil of his being. The all-good person is a failure as a Captain. Whereas, his evil side keeps on exhorting the good one to be ruthless so that the mission could be accomplished. Ultimately, both the Captains unite, and the true leader that Captain Kirk was, finally emerges.

The film is often terrifying in its intensity, and one has to look away from the haunting vulnerability of Nina as she deals with the demons fighting inside her. We may never tip over the precipice, as she does. However, we need to understand why, at some point in our lives, we need to meet our darkest selves to be complete as persons.

This movie would not be what it is without the frightening depth Natalie Portman brings into it. She started learning ballet a year before it was certain that the film would even be made. She sustained injuries during the filming, and when she was told there was no budget for a medic to be on set, she asked her trailer to be taken away instead, and it was! Natalie lost almost 20 pounds in weight to give the character its lean, beautiful and haunting focus. She won several awards for this performance, including the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and it is a justified tribute to her incredible dedication to acting.

The film is chock-a-block with great performances. Mila Kunis is completely at one with her character and Vincent Cassel is incredibly forceful and abhorrent in his role as the artistic director who knows no boundaries in his attempt to get a great performance for his ballet.

Black Swan swaddles over genres–drama, horror and thriller–with an ease that makes it one of the finest films one is likely to see.

Trivia:

1. Aronofsky first discussed with Portman the possibility of a ballet film in 2000, and he found she was interested in playing a ballet dancer. Portman worked out for five hours a day, doing ballet, cross-training, and swimming. She was on a very strict diet of 1,200 calories a day and lost 20 pounds from her normal weight of about 117 pounds.
2. The film went on to gross over $106 million in the United States and over $329 million worldwide on a budget of $13 million only!
3. Natalie Portman met her future husband, choreographer Benjamin Millepied, on the sets of this film.

Watch Black Swan here.

(Views expressed in this piece are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of OTTplay)

(Written by Sunil Bhandari, a published poet and host of the podcast ‘Uncut Poetry’)