Cisne negro:

In the process of watching a movie, we ever so often become the protagonist, finding a tinge of a similarity here or a common foe there and so on.
In this sense, movies act like manna from not-so-imaginary Gods amongst our midst. We nourish our own egos and gather strength from a guy, who we assume, is telling our story so that the "others" may gain their strength from it. I believe this is the reason theater is even more appealing. It removes a barrier between reality and, well, reality of another kind.

Each person imagines himself as Batman of his own city Gotham. (Is a Batman a metaphorical Black Swan, fighting manifestations of his own demons? Hmm. There must be a reason he never kills them.)

Maybe this whole hero-business gets too taxing. It's probably when we don those masks (some people prefer kissing butterflies, while some adore pseudo-intelligent birds and those that are hopelessly lost add gas mask and helmet combinations to their already waning taste in good clothes :) )

Black Swan definitely meets the standards required of an art cinema, in terms of total screen-time that the user is led to believe the lady is without clothes.
However, its merit lies in its entwining of art with the artist. The artist whom the mind resents to mirror. In this sense, there are strong similarities with Oscar Wilde's 'Picture of Dorian Gray'.

There are several elements to the movie that could have been changed. One major obection is to the portrayal of sex, in a way that's not-flattering to the characters involved.

On the plus side, the director+writers seem to respect the viewer's intellect and they don't rush to offer explanations nor justifications to what these characters do. It's this casual non-personal storytelling, probably, that wins you over and reconciles the viewer with the Black Swan.

Links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0947798/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picture_of_dorian_gray