Black Swan
The conceit animating Black Swan is that a young ballerina must harness her duality before she can truly become a star.  She must come to terms with her 'dark' side.   So far, so good.  Enter the Svengali-like ballet master who will push her to new artistic and sexual awareness. She must embody both the virginal White Swan and the seductress Black.  Let's see, male-centered, Madonna/whore formulaic view of women. Check.   Expect gratuitous sex scenes. Check again.   But if sexism alone negated good filmmaking, we'd have an empty library of classics.


What makes this film falter is Aronofsky's lack of conviction.  If a director like Almodovar were given this material,  Natalie Portman's character, Nina, would toss her mother out a window,  have sex with everyone, win the coveted part, dump the ballet master and sail off to paradise with her rival ballerina.  Black Swan could have been a great movie.  Nina becoming the Black Swan on stage is a great scene.


Aronofsky wants to seem subversive, but only inside the formula.  Nina is a straw woman, set up to become hysterical, paranoid and sexual within certain limits. He stuffs the film with horror touches, disorienting shifts in perspective and melodramatic scenes. Nina masturbates (how daring) and it's supposed to be disturbing (unless your a man).  Given the exact same script, I think Almodovar would have made his female stars less cold, sexier and easier to believe.  Without having seen his earlier films it's hard to be sure about Aronofsky, but there is certainly something mechanical and generally misanthropic about this film.