Darren Aronofsky, along with Gaspar Noé, Lars von Trier and Michael Haneke is one of the best independent filmmakers of this generation. From this diverse group, his films have always been, for the lack of a better expression, the more accessible and humane.
This facet has always worked in his favor: the human condition in his films, though portrayed in a raw manner, is also distilled with less bile than in the works of his colleagues. For Noé, Trier and Haneke, the protagonists are sacrificial lambs, to be launched into the jaws of a cruel and absurd universe for study purposes; for Aronofsky, they are condemned creatures, whose destruction is filmed without falter, but also with compassion. However, Black Swan, marks a crossroads for the director: it is both his greatest success to date, and his less genuine piece.
