Hub 135 by Various

Author:Various
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction, Horror, Fantasy
Publisher: Right Hand Publishing

Black Swan / Never Let Me Go

Black Swan

Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, Winona Rider,

Vincent Cassel

Directed by Darren Aranofsky, written by Mark Heyman, John McClaughlin

and Andres Heinz

Never Let Me Go

Starring: Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield

Directed by Mark Romanek, Written by Alex Garland and Kazuo Ishiguro

reviewed by richard whittaker

It’s a curiosity to think that the two actresses who played Padme Amidala in the Star Wars films are both appearing in critically-acclaimed genre movies. It’s just as curious to think that no-one is admitting they are genre movies.

For Natalie Portman, Black Swan is as much a nod to 1970’s Italian horror as it is to art-house drama. Meanwhile, Keira Knightley (who, before getting all piratical with Johnny Depp, served as Padme’s handmaiden/body double Sabe) gets to stick her fingers in the cloning tank for Never Let Me Go.

It’s no surprise that Darren Aranofsky could take something like Black Swan, which has all the trimmings of a psycho-sexual potboiler, and turn it into a screeching, sweat-drenched fever dream of mental collapse and metamorphosis. In many ways, it’s a riposte to his own work on The Wrestler. Yet whereas that was about machismo and the male ego, Black Swan is a dark, curdling pool of menstrual blood. If that sounds a little lurid, then look for the exit now. Black Swan is a hodgepodge of iconic clichés about sexuality and insanity in the arts, fetishizing its mostly female cast as animalistic, lascivious beasts scarcely in control of their erotic urges. Genre is almost an irrelevancy here, because what kind of film it is only becomes obvious in the final frames. What is clear is that Aranofsky has returned to the fever dream meltdown of his debut, 1998’s arithmetical/metaphysical horror Pi, and added the brooding violence and dark eroticism of the supernaturally-tinged Italian giallo genre.

There is a chain of ballerinas, or possibly one woman at different stages in her life. Portman plays Nina Sayers, a rising talent of the ballet world in awe and admiration of aging star Beth (Ryder.) Beneath her in the pecking order is the ingenue Lily (Kunis), who either wants to be her best friend or is warming up for her place in the spotlight. Circling in the background is Nina’s mother Erica (Hershey), whose protection of her daughter’s naivety verges on the pathological. The rock thrown into this millpond is the sole male present: Company director Thomas Leroy (Cassel) decides Beth’s day has passed, and Nina shall take her place in the new production of Swan Lake. Yet while Nina has the blushing innocence for the lead role of the white swan, she lacks the untrammeled physical abandon to play her evil twin, the black swan. Lily has all that, but no finesse; Beth has both, but is burnt out of Cassel’s viewpoint; And Erica wants to make her daughter a star and keep her a child.

For all his undoubted visual acumen, Aranofsky is undoubtedly an actor’s director, and it’s hard to find a performance that’s not a career-best in here.

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