Swanvale Halt Film Club: Black Swan

Well, this breaks the sequence of child-friendly movies fairly comprehensively. The Town Hall in Hornington shows films every few weeks and this was my first visit; it has something of the feel of an old-time picture house, with space for only about 150people. Friendly, but I felt a bit consciously the need not to block the view of whoever was behind me.

A triumph of style, certainly; a dripping shank of Grand Guignol - or perhaps Petit Guignol, because while there are a number of moments that make you wince, they are small, little wounds horribly inflicted. But though the damage seems nastily realistic, you're never sure how much takes place in the lead character's disintegrating mind. You're never sure, in fact, right to the end, and the sense of disconnection means that nobody in the story is much of a real character, and nothing they do cuts to the heart, so to speak.

But the style! There is barely a scene, apart from those set outside, when a mirror is not present, and a significant proportion of the time we see Nina reflected in a mirror rather than directly, signifying double identities (the Black and White Swan Queens) and the separation of appearance and reality. Again, for much of the time the camera follows very close behind her, generating claustrophobia and disorientation and putting the viewer in a very disagreeable, implicated position. On the production level it's a huge achievement.

While searching for pictures to accompany this post I found these equally striking poster images, which are both Deco in their style and Gothic in their extremity, so meet with approval on all sorts of levels.