I feed off of movie recommendations from friends. A friend of mine recommended “Black Swan,” and told me there was a hot lesbian sex scene. Well, what else do I have to do on a cold winter day in Korea? So I sat in my bed and played it from my laptop, and I loved it. I noted vague things, like the camera's focus on physicality, the ever present taking off of earrings. I in turn told Mary to watch it, and that's when things got interesting. She came right over to discuss it and that's when I started to form a real opinion of the movie.
Black Swan, sickly and seductively enjoyable, explores the mounting pressures exerted upon the main character, Nina, by the impossible dichotomous gender expectations and the artistic drive for perfection. If you are familiar with the story of Swan Lake, then you can easily trace how Nina's character follows it. She is the white swan, a vision of perfection and virginal, but is pushed by her company director to master the pure emotion, freedom, and seductiveness of the white swan's evil twin. She is corrupted and consumed in this pursuit.
Nina is a childlike character, who has hints of an eating disorder and scratches herself. She has an overbearing and loving mother who was a failed ballerina, and their relationship is almost stereotypically abnormal and unhealthy. Nina is finally getting a chance from the company director, Tomas, to play the leading role in his production of Swan Lake, after he has cast out his old star, Beth. It seems like everything is going well, but she is not performing the black swan's part to Tomas' standard. In comes Lily, a free spirited and sexy ballerina who can dance the black swan and has the sensuality that Nina lacks. They begin a hesitant friendship, one tainted by Nina's paranoia and jealousy. As the pressure builds, we see Nina begin to lose her sanity. The ending is creepy, and I wasn't sure whether to be uplifted by what she felt she achieved or concerned about whether it was ever worth it at all. I wouldn't claim that the movie was feminist or included a feminist message. I will say that its not advocating that any of these ridiculous expectations are good or necessary.
Nina perfectly embodies the white swan. She is innocent, childlike in the way that she takes little responsibility or control over her life, but without the carefree whims or emotions of children, a bit prim, and virginal. Frigid came up in the film, but meek and weak seem most suitable to her character. She is pushed strongly by her mother, Erica, to remain virginal at least partly as a means to help her achieve success as a ballerina, as an unwanted pregnancy was what tossed Erica out of the spotlight. But Tomas states it best in his demands. He praises her as a perfect white swan, but is harshly critical about her inability to embody the black swan. He wants her to be sexy, seductive, fuckable. He asks her dance partner, “Would you fuck this girl?” and pushes her to explore that side of herself. But in reality, is either one of those ideals Nina? She tries to resist the temptation of the black swan (the “whore” woman) but struggles with the enforced purity of her life, the white swan representing the virgin good girl side of the coin. This struggle forces all of her underlying issues, scratching herself and throwing up, up a couple notches and even to the point of extreme paranoia and hallucinations. The movie traces her mental deterioration, showing that the perfect idea of pure, good girl who is always sexually appealing in all ways is impossible to straddle. Nina is torn apart and her mind is ruined. It is like watching a dramatized version of modern day hysteria.
The film engages intimately with ideas about artistic drive as well. Her director is a man who is imposing his views about a perfect ballerina and women onto the women under his control. He is arrogant and has creative aspirations, evidenced by him declaring he will be reinterpreting the classics. Nina is not only struggling with ideas about femininity but she is sacrificing and striving to be the best at her art.
But what comes before her? Beth, Tomas' previous star or “little princess” as he calls them, was dumped because she was getting old. She is bitter and handles it with disgrace, instead of the beautiful serenity expected of ballerinas and women. She is run over by a car, and Thomas blames it on the darkness inside of her, and calls her “perfect at times, but also so damn destructive.” Nina visits her in the hospital and peeks at the damage done to Beth's legs, and is absolutely horrified as she fears the same thing, the destruction that would cause her to abandon her art. There is little evidence of the passion she has for ballet, likely because passion is something that does not suit her bare, cold character, but here is one such moment. She runs from the possibility of that happening to her, and runs back to dedicate herself to her art, the very thing that she saw destroy Beth and will eventually do the same with her once she achieves perfection. The female artist often faces this problem. Overshadowed by the predominately male canon with few healthy and successful female role models, she is left to navigate a dangerous path. And still, the influences of males and expectations of society are going to interact and conflict with the artists own ideas. In Nina's case, she blindly wanted to be the best and didn't ever question Tomas' instructions and ideals about how to express her art. An artist is supposed to reinvent the old in their own eyes, but she considers it an achievement to do it how another wants her to, perfection.
The Black Swan exposes the pressures put on both women in society and in art, and dramatizes how it affects women through Nina's descent into madness. It has a tragic sort of beauty, and I enjoyed it even though it was often painful.
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