Black Swan Movie Analysis

Black Swan: A Movie Analysis “I felt it. What? Perfect. I was perfect.”

The movie starts with a ballerina dancing to a musical piece beautifully, and then enters a hideous black bird, which seems to torture the ballerina. The young and naïve ballerina is our protagonist, Nina Sayers, played by Natalie Portman. The ballet company she works in, opens for a new season. The director announces that the season will open with an ambitious adaption of “Swan Lake” with a new face. Nina dreams that she is chosen as the “Swan Queen”, a role coveted by all ballet dancers. The whole movie is based on the story of “Swan Lake”, it tells a story of a girl who is trapped inside a white swan, only her true love …show more content…
The first outbreak happens after she consumes alcohol and a drug called ‘ecstacy’ during a night out with Lily. However, it was not the consumption of the substances that caused the outbreak, rather they triggered the episode along with the stressful circumstances she was going through. After she returns home, she screams at her mother and locks herself in her room, and in the process even injures her mother’s hand. She goes on to hallucinate a sexual interaction with Lily, often sees her own face instead of Lily’s and before passing out she sees herself being smothered by a pillow. The episode comes to an end when she wakes up alone in her room. Later, she realizes that Lily never came to her home that night. The time from the beginning of the movie till this episode can be assumed to be “prodromal phase”. In retrospect we can now say that Nina did show subtle signs of schizophrenia. There were slow, gradual, and insidious changes in her behavior. After this she experiences full-blown symptoms of schizophrenia. Her hallucination and delusions become stronger. There is also a change in her behavior. She seems to be more confident, as in one instance; she talks back to her mother. This phase can be regarded as the “active phase”. During this phase, she experiences her second outbreak. It is to be noted here that the third phase in schizophrenia is the “residual phase”, but Nina never reaches to this phase. The second episode began the night before the premiere of “Swan Lake” while she was rehearsing. She is utterly stressed and rehearses continuously till late in night. She begins to slip in and out of reality again. She sees a reflection of herself in the mirror dancing independently. Just then the lights go off and she is scared out of her wits. She then hallucinates a sexual interaction between Thomas and Lily. Here again she sees her own face instead of Lily’s and even see Thomas being morphed