‘Black Swan’ takes on Swan Lake’s psychology

Natalie Portman stars as a ballerina beset by demons in Black Swan.

Black Swan is a movie about a ballerina that has the veneer of a horror film. It takes the classic story of ‘Swan Lake’ and ramps it up with fever dreams, hallucinations, sexual fantasies and nightmares.

That’s not as illegitimate as it may sound – ‘Swan Lake’ tells the tragic fairy tale of a woman trapped in a white swan’s body who can only be freed by the love of a prince. When that prince is seduced by a black swan, the white swan’s hopes are dashed and she kills herself.

Now imagine taking that story out of the land of fairytale and putting it onto a psychological landscape. What would be going on inside that white swan’s head as her hopes rise with that prince on the horizon, then are dashed when her rival seduces him away. Psychologically, what drives her to fling herself off a cliff?

Black Swan the movie gives Natalie Portman the chance to play a real-life version of the white swan, even as she’s cast to play that part in the ballet. And since the white swan is always danced by the same ballerina as the black swan, that allows Portman to battle herself – psychologically – to the bitter end. And since movies can manifest psychology so literally, Black Swan the movie is full of the kinds of horrific dreams that populate a troubled soul.

This is an “out there” film, so melodramatic it invites ridicule but the conception is intriguing enough and the overwrought filmmaking is daring enough to make it all worthwhile.