This is indeed a weird film. First of all, the audience in the cinema was mainly women - which in itself should be no problem, we had that in the film "Mamma Mia" too. Then it is a film about ballet - normally not very mainstream and only interesting to a selective public. But then is a big big success.
One thing is for sure: Natalie Portman deserved her Oscar, if there was one actress to deserve it. Her performance and skill is really great - even if professional dancers are not of this opinion. But then we are no professionals and take it as it comes. I for myself thought her really convincing.
In several critics I read before I saw this film the idea was, that this is about a young woman finding her way into womanhood - if it is like this, then there would be some sort of real trouble in the world. Is awakening to one´s own personality, sexuality and own goals and ideas about life such a destructive process? I would say no.The selfdestructive ways and relations in this film are certainly not a usual way of growing up?
I have had more the impression that the central theme here is ambition and the danger of it, when not counterbalanced by comon sense and anchorage in reality.
Most probably the main character, Nina, has a predisposition to some sort of paranoid sickness - schizophrenia? - her reaction to the stress of getting the chance of her life is certainly not the usual way of facing a great and promising challenge. It takes a while until we realise, that her visions and dreams are in fact the product of her fantasy, of her fears and doubtless the reaction to the very restrictive upbringing by her mother. For me the mother is the most fearsome caracter in the whole film, as she lives through her daughter and wants to pursuit her own ambition through the girl, which is only an instrument to her and her "culprit" of not having had a career as a dancer herself. Typical case of subsitution - how often have we seen this in our lives: children being trained to do what a parent could not achieve.
The dreams and visions Nina experiences is supposed to show a highly sensitive and certainly artistic personality - vulnerable to all sorts of influences and without the possibility standing her own ground. She is driven by the ambition of her mother, then the ambition of the company´s chef, who uses the dancers for his own achievement - and that without any respect and consideration for the human being. He wants to "wake her up" to her dark side and opens a Pandora box, which leaves Nina utterly helpless and without orientation - fantasising about several possibilities of love, of real or invented jealousies in her co-dancers, of fears of being the target and at the same time the author of evil doings which come upon her as the manifestation of her dark other side.
The final showdown makes her let go all her restrictions and leads, apparently, to kill her competitor. Only afterwards we fully understand, that this is pure schizophrenia - and that the release of those forces enable her to give a triumphant performance on stage. The price is her death - a sacrifice on the altar of ambition, not at least of her own ambition. The person Nina does not exist, she seems like a function, which, once on its deadly way, cannot be stopped anymore by nobody and nothing, not even by success. Does ambition kill?
I can imagine, that the ambience in a ballet company is very highstrung - all that physical exercise and pain produces imense emotion which needs an outlet - in this way, I think the film is very well made. But my thought of getting out of the cinema was more down to earth: "What a bunch of hysterical people...!"
The film is certainly worth a go. Perhaps I am wrong in my perception? Only not advisable for all our daughters, dreaming of becoming a primaballerina...
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