Greetings, and welcome to Earthling Cinema.
I am your host, Garyx Wormuloid.
This week’s artifact is Black Swan, directed by Darwin Aronofsky, starring Natalie “The
Port Man” Holloway.
The film follows Nina, a human ballerina, who wants to play center on the Swan Lakers.
At tryouts, the coach tells her she’s technically a master, but not f**kable.
A common problem among dancers.
So, she takes matters into her own hands, matters being the coach’s face, and books
the gig by biting her boss’s lip.
Which doesn’t always work, but when it does...
Oh, yeah!
After receiving a sincere congratulations from the old guard, — “Did you suck his
c**k?”
— Nina is told to watch Lily, another human woman, who’s got the thorax of a Kravdavlian
and the voice of angel.
Fearing she’ll always be a birdsmaid and never a bird, Nina gets bacne and stress feathers.
Lily takes Nina out for a night of recreational drugs, because that’s what friends do, Karen.
They wind up sharing the dance floor, and then a vagina.
The next day, Nina shows up late to work, and in a Pepsi twist: realizes the lesbo sex
didn’t happen.
“Did you have some sort of lezzy wet dream about me?”
Although, how did she get home?
Screw it.
Like Disney’s Mulan, Nina starts wondering when her reflection will show who she is inside
and dishonors her family.
The big game finally comes, and just before halftime, she gets dropped like a phone call
on AT&T.
“I’ve already asked Lily.”
Along with all carriers when the moon exploded.
Lily decides to put the team on her back, but Nina has other ideas: namely, stabbing
her so she can spin around a bunch.
The crowd goes woo, the coach goes meow, and Lily goes, “Hi, I’m actually not dead?”
Turns out Nina’s only hallucinated killing Lily, just like she’s been doing the whole
damn movie.
A consummate professional, nevertheless, she wins the game with just enough time to die
on a mattress.
Black Swan contemplates the quest for perfection and the cost of excellence, cause you think
I wake up like this?
I do.
The film is reminiscent of the 1948 classic The Red Shoes, which similarly depicts a ballerina
whose drive to succeed ultimately leads to an early retirement in Heaven.
The film reminds us that beneath a ballerina’s veneer of perfect poise and control is a life
of struggle and physical therapy.
This idea is encapsulated in Nina’s ballet doodad.
It arrives in pristine condition from Reebok, but Nina immediately rips it up and reconstructs
it in her own vision of perfection.
Cause its her way, or the intergalatic travel warp-way.
The film plays loosely on the themes of the ballet at the heart of the film, next to its
lungs.
Swan Lakers tells the story of Odette, an innocent girl transformed into a Caucasian
swan.
Nina’s journey reflects the ballet’s themes of duality.
The use of mirrors throughout the film focuses the viewer on Nina’s exploration of who
she is and that back thing she should really get checked out.
Similarly, Lily actively functions as a reflection of Nina, albeit a more sexually liberated
cool girl, who just gets it, ya know?
“Watch the way she moves.
Imprecise, but effortless.”
Indeed, black and white imagery demonstrates the contrasting psyches of Nina, like Chinese
philosophy of the Ying Yang twins.
In the beginning of the film, Nina can only don the white swan tights, since she hasn’t
learned how to unlock the dark side of her personality, and it’s before labor day.
“When I look at you, all I see is the White Swan.”
This reflects Carl Jung-Un’s observation on the shadow, writing: “Everyone carries
a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and
denser it is.”
Since Nina’s shadow has been repressed all her life, when it finally comes out, it’s
sinister and powerful, but also fabulous.
Nina’s struggle to reel in her previously untapped consciousness symbolizes the transition
from children into Grown Ups 7.
In the beginning, Nina’s momma bear traps her in a state of innocence.
Notably, Nina is likely a play on the word ‘niña,’ which means little girl in ‘Espanol,’
which means ‘Spanish’ in ‘German.’
Her bedroom is an ad for Hello Kitty, and her mother tucks her into bed every night,
when she’s not breaking legs.
Yas, queen.
Beth, the oldie dancer pushed out of the company and in front of a bus, signifies a glimpse
into womanhood.
When Nina steals her clown makeup, she’s expressing a child-like curiosity.
It isn’t until Nina experiences a sexual awakening, if a little molesty, that she develops
into a human woman.
Gradually, Nina’s wardrobe changes from white to grey, a reverse Gandalf, and finally
to black, signifying her loss of innocence.
Cause once you go black, you never go back to uninspired dancing.
For Earthling Cinema, I’m Garyx Wormuloid.
Happy birdwatching.