Search found 1 match: Darren Aronofsky

darren aronofsky's black swan is obsessed with symmetry between form and content, marrying the fracturing identity of ballerina nina (natalie portman) to an aesthetic dualism of lowbrow and high art, gaudy artifice and operatic portent, schlocky horror tropes and graceful mood-stoking, cheap exploitative thrills and horrified tragedy. he fails at the latter qualities moreso than he has since requiem for a dream however, unable to inhabit nina's crumbling psyche in any sincere or all-encompassing way, dragging out a performance of almost caricaturised histrionics while jumping in and out of her perspective for the sake of misdirection and jump scares.

much empathy is lost amidst the hysterical melodrama, sledgehammer symbolism and score, attention-seeking provocation and leery camerawork on show; taken as straight-faced tragedy, this is ludicrously heavy-handed, outrageous nonsense. and yet pretensions toward such a goal prevent it from fully succeeding as a kitschy tribute to the likes of polanski, argento, de palma, kon or lynch either - aronofsky is too in love with his own formal cleverness to embrace the chaos in the way nina eventually does, and it ends up more restrained and self-serious than a pastiche can afford to be.