Female Psychosis and visual language in Black Swan, Repulsion and Anti-Christ

The term 'psychosis' refers to a state of mind during which reasoning, thinking and mood are disrupted to such an extent as to significantly affect the emotional and psychological state of an individual as well as their behaviour. This is a subject frequently explored in cinema with visual language being manipulated to portray the disrupted mind of the individual.

The medium of film is the closest commercial art-form to portraying dreams because it takes the spectator on a visual journey. There are also similarities in the experience of watching a film and dreaming in the sense that you sit in a darkened room and watch images projected on to a screen. When you dream you are also in a darkened room but the images are projected in the subconscious mind.
Also, the state of spectator and dreamer are passive as you can not control the events unfolding in front of you. The visual language of film employs lighting, camera shots, framing and composition, movement, mise en scene (costume, props etc), make up, settings, production design and editing techniques and effects to create meaning and responses. This language can be used to project the internal as well as the external. I am going to discuss how the internal in the form of psychosis is portrayed in three films; Black Swan (2010), Repulsion (1965) and Anti-Christ (2009).

Each of these films tackles the subject of female psychosis on some level and uses stylised visuals and symbolism to create meaning and take the spectator into the subconscious mind of the female protagonist.  Each film can be said to adopt the visual language of dreams and nightmares and that the narrative codes are less significant than style and symbolism in creating meaning. Women are frequently depicted in films as being unstable emotionally and mentally. Whereas men tend to be shown as dominant and in control, women are portrayed as unpredictable and out of control. It could be argued that this is merely a male statement of the female psyche and shows a lack of gender understanding yet it is generally true that women are more led by emotions. It is also interesting that sexuality plays a part in each film discussed and is strongly linked to female psychosis and behaviour.

Black Swan is the story of a ballerina named Nina who must embrace the darker side of her nature in order to portray the black swan as well as the white in a production of Swan Lake. Nina is inexperienced, restrained and dominated by her mother. Slowly, she begins to embrace her darker side and this links strongly, as it does in the other films I discuss, to sexuality and violence. We gradually observe the line between reality and fantasy blur as Nina's transformation into the black swan becomes literal. She experiences fantasies and hallucinations. She sees her self as a separate person in reflections as her personality splits. She scratches at the surface of her skin as black coloured feathers break through. The physical manifestations are to show the psychological transformation taking place within. Nina becomes obsessed with a ballerina named Lily (Mila Kunis) and sees her as both an object of sexual desire and a rival. Lily represents the dark nature of the black swan that Nina wishes to embrace. Nina is no longer able to distinguish between what is real and imagined. This could be interpreted in several ways. Firstly, it could be said that embracing the darker side of your personality is dangerous and leads to the individual losing control. It could be argued that Nina now experiences things that she simply was not open to before. It could also be said that the message of the film is that an individual can become consumed by the desire to succeed (in this case as lead ballerina) to the point of losing control.
By the time that Nina fully transforms into the swan complete with glowing red eyes and black feathers she is also fantasising about killing Lily and reaching the peak of her potential as dancer and artiste. The colour palette in the film becomes dominated by blacks and reds which are obvious associations with the darkness of the black swan as well as the sexual desire and blood imagery evident in the latter scenes. There is more than one narrative interpretation open to the spectator. The film links themes of psychosis, aspiration and ambition, sexuality and a fear of the darker side of our own natures.

In Repulsion, a frightened and neurotic young woman named Carole who works in a beauty salon becomes terrorised when left alone in her sister's apartment. Carol is nervous and withdrawn and appears to have suffered some kind of trauma. The first indication that there is something wrong with her psychologically is how she reacts to her sister's boyfriend. She is repulsed (thus the title) by the sounds of sex that filter through the bedroom wall as well as the sight of the man's razor in the bathroom. When the sister and her boyfriend go away on holiday Carole is left alone to succumb to her fears. Repulsion portrays Carole's state of mind through the apartment she stays in. Cracks in the walls start to appear (symbolising her interior state as she 'cracks up'). Shadows and dark corners take on new menace. She is sexually assaulted by an unknown assailant (to the ringing of a bell) and arms reach out from the walls to grab and grope her. Director Roman Polanski and his cinematographer deliberately and skillfully use skewed angles and lenses to distort the apartment interior in order to show the spectator the manifestation of Carole's psychosis. As with Black Swan, it becomes unclear what is real and what is imagined. There is clearly psychoanalytical dream theory at work in which unconscious fears are manifested. Carole's fear of sex and repressed sexuality also mirror, to some extent, those of Nina in Black Swan although whereas Nina is most fearful of not achieving her dream and must explore her sexuality in order to do so, Carole has a much deeper-rooted fear of sex. The origin of this is not revealed until the final frames when we are shown a family photograph in which a young Carole is seen glaring fearfully and resentfully at her father who we are led to assume has sexually abused her.
The film is fascinating from a psychological perspective but also visually in terms of the lighting contrast which evokes the horror genre and expressionism and how effectively claustrophobia and paranoia are created.

Anti-Christ is the most controversial and perhaps most difficult of the three films to discuss. On the basic narrative level the film is about a couple (known only as He and She) who lose their child in a tragic accident (he falls from a window whilst they are having sex) and retreat, in order to try and heal emotionally to an isolated cabin in the woods. Once at the cabin, She suffers psychosis, hallucinations and guilt which culminate in a bloody confrontation with her psychiatrist husband. On first viewing, Anti-Christ struck me as a a type of biblical horror film. The setting of the woods seems to represent the Garden of eden after the fall of man. The film is rich in imagery and employes vivid cinematic language but is so graphic in its depiction of sex and violence that this detracts from the more interesting aspects of the film. The relationship between the protagonists is dysfunctional. He, the psychiatrist, is rational and not in touch with his emotions whereas She is a force of nature immersed in emotion. Once in the woods, She surrenders her self to the dark feminine nature within her. Nature is associated with the feminine, with temptation, desire and Eve. The manifestation of her psychosis is intrinsicly linked to the woods and her mistrust of the male. The woods appear to come alive. She feels the sensation of burning when she walks on the ground. Something from within the darkness beckons her. He uncovers a fox in the undergrowth, ripping out its own intestines. The interpretation of the fox, crow and deer (referred to in the film as the 'three beggars') is unclear although they are possibly symbolic of the three wise men who attended the (spiritual) death of Christ. The film incorporates surrealism. There is a wonderfully surreal sequence where He and She have sex beneath a tree as many hands reach out from the earth and twisted bark. The infamous and much maligned scenes of violence in the final third of the film are undoubtedly extreme. He is physically disabled by She. Castration and clitorectomy savagely render both He and She sexually devoid of sexual identity and complete the psycho-sexual transformation.
The film, for its sex and violence and depiction of female madness and sexuality, has been labelled a misogynist fantasy. There might be some truth in this accusation. However, it is also an artistic and gruelling horror-fairytale about female sexuality, vengeance and power.

All three of these films, as I have discussed relatively succinctly, explore female psychosis and sexuality. Each female protagonist suffers from a psychological disruption or disintegration which is portrayed through vivid imagery and external symbolism.