Venice Film Festival: Natalie Portman bewitches as a dancer with a dark side in Black Swan

It’s a triumph in every sense — in Natalie Portman’s mesmeric, Oscar-booking performance as a ballerina discovering her dark side, in the way the script interweaves dance and drama, and perhaps above all in the way it proves dark films can still work in times of recession, if they’re good enough.

In Pictures: Black Swan Premiere at Venice

Because this is certainly one dark film. Literally as well as thematically: colours are muted, faces in shadow, and you wouldn’t find your seat without an usher after the house lights go down. The story revolves around a New York ballet company staging Swan Lake under passionate choreographer-director, Thomas (Vincent Cassel), who is miraculously (for the world of ballet) straight. Having ditched the ageing prima donna (played by Winona Ryder), Thomas is looking for a new Swan Queen for his stage and bed, and Nina (Portman) — technically perfect but rather frigid and uptight, who lives at home with her controlling mother (a chillingly creepy Barbara Hershey) — wants the role. She’s good at doing the white swan, Thomas tells her, but can she find the cruelty and seductiveness within for a convincing black swan? Rivalry comes in the form of Lily (Mila Kunis), who can do black-swan seduction like a pro.

Ballet has never seemed so much like torture: toes are bloodied, muscles strained, bodies trussed. But the really convincing thing about the film is the way it keeps our sympathy with a character who is slowly going off the rails: never an easy task. And the 15-minute Swan Lake finale is a tour de force. Rarely has dance been used in film with such narrative thrust and verve, and rarely have the strains of dramatic performance been so intriguingly unpicked.

Black Swan