Nina, who has been nurtured by her mother's artistry since childhood, has also become one of the leading performers in a famous New York ballet troupe by the time she has grown into a beautiful young woman. The mother's stubbornness and maverick seems to have influenced her young daughter's growth. Right now, the young and energetic Nina is embarking on her first career opportunity, which is to star in and compete for the first female role in the famous ballet "Swan Lake". The director, Thomas, recognizes Nina's potential and gives her the right advice. However, the number one role required by Thomas not only requires the nobility, purity and kindness of the White Swan in the ballet, but also the evil, cunning, passion and lust of the Black Swan. In the competition, Nina, not surprisingly, demonstrates the beauty and qualities of her gifted White Swan, while her strong competitor, Lily, also excels in her interpretation of the Black Swan, both winning the admiration of the director and her peers. The result is an inevitable rivalry between Nina and Lily that even steps up from the level of artistic expression to a situation of mentally twisted attacks and entanglements. Hookups, self-harm and even homosexuality play out one after another. Nina also steps onto a path of self-destruction.
Great mental pressure and fierce competition, Nina hallucinated and suffered from schizophrenia, killing her rivals in her hallucinations, in fact hurting herself, burying herself like a white swan for the sake of perfection.
Artistic appreciation aside, from a psychoanalytic point of view, there is a taste of psychoanalysis everywhere in the film:
Nina, the heroine, has a powerful, controlling mother with extremely high expectations. With the absence of a husband and the loss of her career, the mother sees her daughter as a spiritual pillar and a tool to fulfill her desires. "I sacrificed my career to give birth to you" is like a mantra that imprisons Nina, who can only be a "sweet daughter" and let her mother control her, including playing the piano at an early age, eating as much cake as she can, dressing, undressing, and clipping her nails, and controlling her daughter's privacy with her love. The mother's love controls her daughter and interferes with her privacy. From a young age, she is forced to take ballet lessons (in the play, her mother says, "If I hadn't followed you to ballet, you would have given it up long ago"), and when she grows up, she becomes one of the leading performers in a famous New York ballet company. Her mother's aspirations and values subtly influence Nina and are internalized into her own pursuits. The relationship between Nina and her mother is one in which her mother uses pressure and expectations to guide or correct Nina's direction, not to go off on a tangent, not to rebel, not to have her own opinions or emotions, or else to be as insistent as she was when she made Nina eat cake after she had qualified as a lead dancer. The pink pajamas, the jacket, the sheets, the room full of stuffed animals are all metaphors for Nina, a 28-year-old girl.
With the awakening of self-consciousness in her inner subconscious and the influence of her outer environment: the director, inspired by the imaginary enemy Lily, Nina yells at her controlling, constraining representative mother: "Get out of here," and tells her, "Your good daughter is dead. When the mother realizes that the role of the "black swan" has devoured her daughter, it is too late. The mother's values and outlook on life have been y implanted in her daughter's heart, and her desire for success, her desire to win, and her pursuit of perfection are better than her own. The process of growth is not only happy, more pain, confusion, fear, just like the snake's metamorphosis, they find a piece of stone hard to peel off a layer of skin, very painful; there are a lot of desires, temptations, where to go, how to find themselves - high, to go to the bar to indulge in, to make friends with homosexuals, very confused; fear of their own heart! Some desires that are not recognized by her mother and repressed by herself. All these aspects form a conflict within Nina.
Analyzed from a psychological point of view, all the characters in the film can be seen as different personality types of Nina: 1) the mother, who symbolizes the internalized sense of super-morality and authority; 2) the director, who is also the authority and the wise old man within, guides Nina's growth, "overcoming herself in order to achieve the phoenix nirvana and turn into a butterfly." "It is yourself who is the hold of your own performance"; 3)Lily, the imaginary enemy, is Nina's repressed instinctive desire: sex, freedom.
In order to visualize Nina's inner growth, the movie uses a lot of metaphorical shots:
1. The mother painting - is painting the daughter she wishes to be, and in real life, the mother is carving her own daughter according to her own desires.
2. Time and again, her spine is scratched by herself and her fingers bleed - the awakening of growth, a metaphor for Nina's determination to break out of her shell into her own self, at a cost;
3. Time and again, her nails are clipped by her mother - a metaphor for her mother's fear of losing again (losing her husband and career), which hinders Nina's self-development and growth;
4. Pink pajamas, jacket, bed sheets, and a room full of stuffed animals are all metaphors for Nina, who at 28 years old, is being raised by her mother as a little girl;
5. Tearing the skin off her fingers - Nina's attempt to to metamorphose, but it hurts, so it is shallow, but the desire for autonomy, freedom from time to time to impinge on themselves (scratching the spine, out of the cocoon);
6. Black swan's wings - a symbol of transcendence, liberation from the repressive situation.
7. Bleeding fingers - signifies inner conflict, guilt for betrayal of mother.
9. Nina's death by suicide - a metaphor for the end result of the pursuit of perfection in personality traits, there is a price to pay.
The movie's plot has a psychological background, especially some subconscious things, is a higher realm than other types of movies, more popular with the people's sake, although the story makes people's mood is very heavy, but left people endless thinking, especially for those who have become parents.
It feels like director Darren? Aronofsky, is not only a director, but also a master of psychoanalysis, or else he would not have made such a professional psychological movie. Appreciate him a lot!
Psychological thriller "Black Swan": hidden in the heart of the black swan
The movie "2012" and a series of disaster movies in the story of mankind or behind the demise of the planet, the reaction is the fear of mankind for the fear of death; and psychological thriller "Black Swan" about a dancer for the pursuit of a role, can not withstand the overburdening of the pressure, the mental collapse and even the death of the story, the reaction is the fear of human beings of the void. The movie is about a dancer who suffers a nervous breakdown and even dies in pursuit of a role, which is a reaction to man's fear of nothingness.
In 2010, director Aronofsky's new film, "Black Swan," premiered at the 67th Venice Film Festival and was shortlisted for the festival's Golden Lion. A psychological thriller about the ballet opera "Swan Lake," the film shows the horrific visions of the heroine, Nina, before and after she takes on the roles of the White Swan and the Black Swan in the opera.
Originally, there are two important roles in the opera "Swan Lake" - the White Swan and the Black Swan. The white swan is kind and beautiful; the black swan is evil and very seductive. The white swan is a beautiful princess, because of the devil's spell, was turned into a swan, only after midnight she can restore human form. One day, the White Swan met the hunting prince by the lake, she confided her life to the prince, the prince's deep pity transformed into love, he decided to save the swan princess. The white swan tells him that the spell can only be lifted by someone who truly loves her and is willing to die for her. So, the prince prepares to hold a dinner party, invites the White Swan to the banquet, and sincerely proposes to her. However, the Demon King had his daughter play the role of the Swan Princess, only dressed in black, to go to the banquet and seduce the prince. Thinking that the black swan was the Swan Princess, the prince danced with her and announced his engagement. The white swan flies away with a despairing wail outside the window ......
The movie "The Black Swan" is not about the mythological story of "Swan Lake," but about Nina, a ballerina. Nina is an accomplished ballerina in a New York theater company who has been practicing ballet since she was a child, is skilled, and is well-behaved, beautiful, and delightful. This is due in large part to her strict and cold mother, under whose tutelage Nina grew up to be an exceptionally obedient, hard-working, and well-behaved daughter. As a result of this, Nina lacks a spirited passion, and her youthful and sexual vigor is not reflected in her. Nina is more likely to pursue perfection by carefully dancing every step, self-repression and lack of emotional release. Therefore, when the troupe wanted to remake the opera "Swan Lake", Nina was the perfect choice for the role of the White Swan; but the role of the Black Swan, with its evil and seductive characteristics, Nina was unable to complete the role change for a while.
The director of the opera, Thomas, asked the new actress to play both the black and white swan roles. As we all know, the black and white swan is a very important role in Swan Lake, and the actor who plays this role will not only have a better career, but will also be famous. Nina's heart desperately wanted to play these two roles. So Nina approached Thomas, the opera's director, on her own and told her that she wanted the opportunity. Thomas eventually agrees to let her play both roles, but asks Nina to learn to release her emotions and show seduction, and coaxes her in this regard all the time. And there is another dancer in the troupe, Lily, who is bold, lively and energetic by nature, and her performance of the Black Swan is not only appreciated by the crowd, but also recognized by Thomas. Although, Lily was chosen as the understudy for the Black Swan, it also brought great psychological pressure to Nina.
Nina practiced hard on the one hand, but on the other hand, she was always afraid that someone would compete with her for the role. The high level of mental stress from practicing all day long made Nina feel physically and mentally exhausted. At the beginning, when she practiced the black swan dance, she accidentally sprained her foot; later, because of the long practice, her toes were too tightly tied to her shoes, and her toes were almost sticking together. What's even more horrible is that Nina's back kept getting bruises, supposedly from scratching herself with her hands when she was under too much pressure; she also saw blood oozing out of her fingernails when she washed her hands or took a shower - of course, this was Nina's hallucination. Then Nina kept having hallucinations; one night Lily dragged her out to play, and when she came back Nina felt like she was happily swapping with Lily - but Lily didn't go home with her that night; and another time when she was practicing alone, she heard a loud noise, and ran over to it only to see the Superintendent, Thomas, having sex with Lily -- and there was really no such thing. By this time, a dual personality of black and white swans coexisting in Nina.
During the final performance, Nina accidentally misplaced her movements at first, making Thomas furious. When Nina came into the dressing room, she found Lily there and sarcastically said that she might as well give her the role of the Black Swan, so the two had a heated argument and Nina accidentally stabbed Lily to death with a shard of glass -- which, of course, was Nina herself. Nina dragged Lily's "body" into the restroom, and when she re-entered the dressing room, blood poured out from under the door, which Nina blocked with a towel. Just then, Lily knocked on the door and congratulated Nina on a job well done. Nina was too surprised to say a word, and when she went to check the towel again, there was no blood underneath, and there was no body in the restroom at all. That's when she realized that she had stabbed herself and that the glass was still in her stomach. Nina sadly left tears in her eyes ......
Just as Nina was sadly shedding tears, my mind was shaking -- a person just killed herself, and she was just pursuing playing a role, was it worth it? On further reflection, I am afraid that Nina's action is a reaction to the human fear of nothingness - what is so terrible about death - just as the Norse myth about Odin's legend reads: "The rich will die, loved ones will die and you will die too, but I know one thing that will not die, and that is what everyone says about the dead." Immortalized fame became a goal for everyone. In real life, there are few people who "kill themselves" in the pursuit of fame, and the movie is just an exaggerated artistic way to show this phenomenon. Look, how many of us sit in front of the computer for more than ten hours a day, hard work; and how many people drink coffee late at night to refresh, smoke to stimulate the nerves, overtime. The number of chronic fatigue and overwork death in modern society is increasing, they are just unable to resist that nothingness in life.
Life certainly requires work and effort, otherwise life would be empty and meaningless. However, the essence of life is not work, much less success or fame through work. Life is a natural journey of living out one's life, and everything else is ancillary. We can pursue success, or have goals, or challenge ourselves, but remember that all of these are to make life more meaningful, not to obliterate it and gain fame. As it is said in Zhuangzi - The Lord of Nurturing Life: "I am born at the end of the world, but I know at the end of the world. With the end of the world, with the end of the world, it is dangerous. Those who already know, are in danger! ......" understanding Zhuangzi's passage must not intercept the first two sentences, Zhuangzi's real point is that the limited life to pursue unlimited knowledge, dangerous ah! It is dangerous to know and still do so!
It seems that Zhuangzi's understanding of life is still the most thorough. According to Zhuangzi, life is a major event in life, for which people should have rational thinking. In thinking about life, human beings should turn their thinking in the direction of themselves, not treating the process of life as an appendage to the goals of society, not drawing on the pursuit of worldly things, but conserving the needs of life itself. The latter part of that passage from Zhuangzi reads, "There is no nearness to fame for good, and no nearness to punishment for evil. The margin of the Governor as the scripture, can protect the body, can be full of life, can nourish relatives, can be the end of the years." This is Zhuangzi's philosophy of survival, the so-called "to protect oneself" refers to the social life from social irrationality; "full life" refers to the life itself as the goal of life activities, human survival should be to maintain a complete life; "to raise relatives" refers to "no good is near the name, no evil is near the punishment". "Nurturing one's relatives" means paying attention to and taking care of one's own health; "completing one's life" means "returning to one's home with a full life expectancy". This is the understanding of the essence of life - not all white swans have to be able to play the black swan, it's good to be your own white swan!
Once we understand that life is natural, we are less afraid of nothingness. Because life is inherently nothingness. It is said that Zhuangzi realized this when his wife died and he sang with a drum and a basin. Zhuang Zi said: "Ran the beginning and the original lifeless; not just lifeless, but also, and the original invisible; not just invisible, but also, and the original no gas. Mixed between the Mangfluorene, change and have gas, gas change and have form, form change and have life. Now and change and the death. It is with each other for spring, fall, winter and summer four time line also. ...... "Zhuangzi's wife died, at first he was also very sad, but then think about it, there is no life, not only no life, not even the form, the most primitive gas, everything is from the beginning of the chaos, and finally came to life. The life and death of human beings is the same as the change of spring, summer, fall and winter. Therefore, there is nothing to be sad about when people die, and nothingness is nothing to be afraid of. For we all come from nothingness, and it is best that we all go to nothingness.
I hope that Nina's death was a walk into the Void, and a walk out of the Void; and that all human beings will be able to go in and out of the Void without fear.