IN DARREN ARONOFSKY'S thriller, "Black Swan", which has opened in America and is launched around the world from later this month, Natalie Portman plays Nina, the kind of ballerina who is referred to in the dance world as a "bunhead" because she has sacrificed her life to the quest for perfection. Nina is poised to step into the dual role of Odette and Odile in "Swan Lake" at New York's Lincoln Centre. But Thomas (Vincent Cassel), the company's tyrannical director, tells her that perfection isn't enough. She may be flawless as Odette, but she lacks the passion to play Odette's evil twin, Odile. To get in touch with her dark side, Nina will have to live a little.

在達倫•阿倫諾夫斯基的驚悚片"黑天鵝"中（該片已經在美國上映，并將從本月的遲些時候開始在全球上映），娜塔莉•波特曼飾演主人公妮娜——一個芭蕾舞女演員，這類角色在舞蹈世界中常常被戲稱為"面包頭"，因為她不惜犧牲自己的生活以追求完美。妮娜準備在紐約林肯藝術中心公演的"天鵝湖"中一人分飾兩角——白天鵝和黑天鵝。但是專橫的劇團總監托馬斯（文森特•卡索爾飾）卻告訴妮娜僅僅完美還不夠。妮娜的白天鵝表演也許無可挑剔，但是她在飾演白天鵝的雙胞胎姐妹——邪惡的黑天鵝時，卻缺乏激情。為了能夠觸碰到內心的陰暗面，妮娜必須釋放自己。

Unfortunately, she and her devoted, overbearing mother Erica (Barbara Hershey), a former dancer, share a claustrophobic apartment where Thomas's modest tips about overcoming 30 years of sexual repression prove impractical. Her alternate in the leading role, a sexy interloper named Lily (Mila Kunis), even comes home with her after an ecstasy-fuelled night on the town, but the consummation Nina experiences turns scary when Lily looks up in mid-tryst with Nina's face and informs her the next day that she went home alone in a taxi. This is no isolated incident; Nina is going mad.

妮娜和母親一起生活在一間令人幽閉恐怖的公寓中。妮娜的母親艾瑞卡（芭芭拉•赫希飾），曾經是一位舞蹈演員，她專橫但給予女兒無微不至的照顧。在這樣的環境中，托馬斯希望妮娜克服30年的性壓抑并釋放自己的提示，不幸收效甚微。主角的替補演員——性感的莉莉（米拉•庫妮絲飾），對于妮娜來說，是一位不懷好意的闖入者。在鎮上一夜尋歡作樂后，莉莉甚至跟妮娜回家，兩人歡愛時，莉莉的臉變成了妮娜，而第二天妮娜又被告知她是獨自坐出租車回家。于是，妮娜的這一次歡愛經歷變得驚悚駭人。但這并非偶然，因為妮娜開始精神分裂。

"Black Swan" evokes memories of Michael Powell's "The Red Shoes", but it soon veers into the territory of his "Peeping Tom", about a cameraman who murders his models while filming them. Does Nina murder Lily before triumphing onstage as a very scary black swan? The film, which weds gritty realism with the dreamworld of the ballet, is an unreliable witness. It takes place entirely inside Nina's mind, which is increasingly unable to distinguish between the two. What is incontestably real is Ms Portman's triumph in rising to the demands of the role, and the weird beauty of the film Mr Aronofsky has created to display her Oscar-calibre performance.

"黑天鵝"一開始使人們想起邁克爾•鮑威爾執導的影片"紅菱艷"，但很快又讓人想起他的影片"偷窺狂"，講述一個攝影師在拍攝的過程中謀殺模特的故事。在登臺成功演出前，妮娜是否成為邪惡的黑天鵝殺死了莉莉？這部影片，將殘酷的現實與芭蕾舞的幻想世界結合在一起，展示的畫面并不一定就是事實。謀殺完全發生在妮娜的意識世界中，而妮娜越來越難以辨別何為真實何為虛幻。但是，毋庸置疑的是，波特曼成功演繹了這個角色，而阿倫諾夫斯基導演則賦予這部影片異樣的美麗，讓波特曼得以發揮出具有奧斯卡水準的表演。