The Unreliable Narrator, Mental Illness, and the Black Swan

[keyan_bowes]

Yesterday, we saw Black Swan. My companion liked it lot, for emotional intensity, the acting, and the dancing.

Me, not so much. But it made me think, which is all good. What it made me wonder is, why wasn't I engaging with the movie?

The reasons (and spoilers) under the cut.

At first, I thought it might be because to me it was reading like mental illness, maybe adult-onset schizophrenia. Mentally ill ballet dancer cracks under the strain of the big role and starts seeing things.

Years ago, I made friends with a woman who was smart and pretty and had only a high-school education; she and her child were on welfare and family support. I thought she'd gotten derailed because she fell in love too young with a foreigner who got deported, and had a baby. I suggested she consider going back to college so she wouldn't be stuck in dead-end jobs. That apparently inspired her. She got her AA degree, then her BA; her life was on an upward trajectory. And then... she started hallucinating. Awful visions, of violence to herself and her child from a man she knew at school. That he had the mental powers to force her to let him in, despite the locks on her door. That he could spy on her while she visited with me, through her own mind, and force her to do things she didn't want to do. Her illness ended the upward trajectory. The child was taken into care, then returned to her. She was on meds and off meds. The kid went to other relatives, then to his father, then into care again... she subsisted on welfare and family support and went into a string of bad and worsening relationships.

So I felt that watching a mentally ill person hallucinate through some gory stuff  was... not entertainment, anyway. But was it just that? After all, I'd watched and enjoyed "A Beautiful Mind."

Then I figured, maybe it's the Unreliable Narrator. I couldn't figure what was true and what wasn't, which made it less engaging. She dreamed the lesbian love sequence, and the murder. Did she dream the end as well? Was the whole thing a hallucination? Was the beginning of the film really the ending? It should have been interesting, but it was ... puzzling. Without any reality to peg events on, the whole movie became a series of dark visions and hallucinations, and essentially meaningless.

Now I understand why my critique group get frustrated with the It was All a Dream (Maybe) endings.

Comments

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

Where the unreliable narrator really works for me is where you know what's true mostly, but it's clear the narrator's interpretation is whacked.

I knew when I heard some other people talking about it that I wouldn't see Black Swan, so I don't mind you spoilering it, but some other people on your f-list might appreciate a cut tag.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks, good point. I moved it. - Keyan