Running head: MOVIE REFLECTION 1

Black Sawn: A Reflection of a Movie18-10160

Forman Christian College

(A Chartered University)

PSYC465-B

Submitted to: Sarah Anthony

Date: 15.04.2019

Movie Reflection
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Short Summary:

The movie revolves around a young ballet dancer Nina. The goes that she is obsessed

with her profession, as a dancer. She is decent and well-mannered innocent girl who has

repressed her id (sexual side). Her mother is over protective and controlling, which has made

Nina a non-social girl. The director (Thomas Leory) of the institute where she practice arranges a

grand function. This is where a lot of demand is made on Nina, as the story of the play requires a

black swan who has evil intentions but Nina is an innocent girl. This is the turning point of

Nina’s life, as she discovers her unconscious repressed side, which was repressed for a long time.

Nina somehow enters in competition with Lily, another dancer who grabbed the attention of

Leory. At the end, she successfully accepts her unconscious repressions and overcome her

neurotic anxiety.

Reflection:

The mother of Nina can be said as super-ego personified as she is controlling and over

protective. Nina is the ego personified as she represses her black swan (id) within her. The black

swan was the id of Nina. Through her dream interpretation, it can be seen that she has repressed

her lusty feelings deep in her unconscious, as in the very start of the movie she dreams of a black

swan, which is personification of seduction and lust. There was wound on her back, which may

be psychosomatic representation of her repressed material. In the end the wound disappears that

indicates it was never there, it was just representation of her neurotic anxiety. When Leory said

another girl would replace her because she cannot act black swan, she said okay and walked out.

That was the time when Leory kissed her first time and she resisted. This was her the resistance

of her unconscious mind trying to stop those repressed feelings come out to conscious. After that

she ran into a washroom and saw on the mirror it was written whore. This was her moral anxiety.
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When she was dancing with a male partner (David), she showed another instance of resistance.

This is where Leory gives her a homework to touch herself, in order to accept her sexual side,

which she was trying to repress. When she was touching herself her saw her mother sleeping on

the couch, which was another instance of moral anxiety and her unconscious mind holding

herself back. One day she goes to a bar and have a drink with Lily and on her their way back Lily

touches her and they both have lesbian sex on returning to Nina’s home. Later Lily tells her that

she never came to her room and never had sex. This was her wet dream, thus another instance of

her repressed sexuality coming out in dreams. Later Nina starts to feel as Lily is her enemy and

she will replace her but Leory tells her that “the only person standing in your way is you”.

Finally at the she had a fight with Lily and later discovers it was herself. This is an excellent

example of displacement, as she was displacing anger of her black swan on Lily. Overall Nina

seemed fine except that she had a sexual dysfunction, as she had a lesbian wet dream and not

being in touch and scaring her sexual side. According to Freud, she must be fixated at her phallic

stage, as sexual dysfunction takes place at this stage, also the absence of her father could have

caused her interest in girls.