Photo by Niko Tavernise, courtesy of Fox Searchlight
Director Darren Aronofksy (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler) has garnered tremendous critical and popular attention. It’s not clear, though, whether audiences, critics, or even Aronofsky see the comedy contained within his hyperbolic cinema. That the films' stars have no idea of the scripts’ rich comedic mine seems key to their success. The extravagance with which bodies are penetrated, lives devastated, and psyches fractured has to be played exceptionally straight for the comedy to work. Please understand that this isn’t an insult; in fact, Aronofsky’s films succeed precisely because of their genre-disturbing tendencies.
The laughter only uneasily erupts during Black Swan because Aronofsky so successfully keeps viewers on edge. His camera follows Nina (Natalie Portman) relentlessly, stalking her through claustrophobic hallways, subways tunnels, and New York apartments. Even when the shot opens up on the street, the camera stays close behind Nina, never letting her out of its sight (in fact, Portman is on screen most of the film’s 108 minutes). Nina startles easily, her strong body fragmented by the camera’s emblazoning gaze. Earning the starring role in Swan Lake, she struggles to break through the repression and control that define her. Mother Erica (fabulously cast and acted by Barbara Hershey) smothers and pets Nina until Lily (Mila Kunis) tempts Nina to an evening of dancing, drugs, and sex. Coitus interruptus marks most of the film, until finally Nina consummates her desire with Lily . . . or does she?
Aronofsky succeeds in unnerving audiences, eliding the distinction between delusion and reality. We begin seeing her reflection everywhere, uncertain of how far to trust her narrative perspective. The film does run the risk of serving too well as a textbook illustration of psychoanalytic lit theory, with Freud, Lacan, Mulvey, Jung represented, among many others. Aronofsky, like his characters, embraces extremes: hints of feathers sprouting from Nina's self-inflicted wounds are merely eerie; legs snapping in two, countless lips moving in a room of her mother’s self-portraits becomes a carnivalesque sideshow. The film’s climax—and inevitable tragedy—leaves viewers not devastated but exhilarated at their shameless extravagance.
