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Why we won’t be able to watch “Black Swan” in Amman

February 4th, 2011

Well, apparently we get our subtitled movies either from UAE’s Gulf Film or Lebanon’s Tetraspot. So, if a movie is heavily censored, then it is coming from Dubai and if it is not, then it is from Beirut.

Besides Natalie Portman being an Israeli-American Jewish, the movie “Black Swan” was banned by the censors in the UAE for “excessive sexual content” according to Mohammad Naser, the official responsible for cinemas at Dubai’s censorship department. He said that movie was sent to the department for censorship. “When we find that the amount of editing required takes a big part of the movie, we conclude that there is no point in releasing it,” he said.

Naser said that in “Black Swan” the viewer would have been left with 25 per cent of the film had it been released after editing. “Upon reviewing a film, the censorship department makes a decision, writes it in a report and hands the report to the distributors,” said Naser.

Black Swan stars Natalie as a troubled ballet dancer. Daniela Yordanova, brand manager of 20th Century Fox for the Middle East at Empire International – Gulf, which distributes the films, said that her company was notified that both films were banned in the UAE. “They usually ban films because of the content and the name,” she said, citing Sex and the City as an example. “If the censoring involves just a scene then they will cut it and approve it, but if there’s a lot of censoring needed they ban the film,” she said. She added, however, that both films will be released in other Middle Eastern markets such as Lebanon.

I personally wished Jordan was added to Daniela’s list, many movies were left unedited with minimal nudity the past few months and I was happy to see that happening, because at least I don’t have to rely on piracy to watch a great film on a greater screen like what happens in the GCC. Most of our cinemas are even strictly following the American rating system. I witnessed one incident where a 60 year old grandma wanted to buy tickets for 4 young teenagers where the manager refused to sell, although she almost begged indicating that that specific horror movie they wanted to watch in appropriate for their age, not for the horror but for the sexual content those youngsters shouldn’t be encouraged to watch.

I hope the movie airs here uncensored. If it doesn’t, then I’ll have to watch the pirated version I bought for 1 JD from downtown, uncensored, not good in quality neither great in sound, of a movie that might win the oscars, shame.

More info: Black Swan is a psychological horror film. A prestigious New York City ballet company is producing “Swan lake”. One dancer, Nina (Portman) is selected as the White Swan while Lily (Kunis) is the Black Swan. But Nina is interested in the black swan role. She fears Lily wont allow it, gradually Nina displays a number of psychotic symptoms, including strong delusions and elaborate visual hallucinations. Lily too uses unfair tactics to oust nina. She seduces Nina to have sex with her…then denies the incident, What happens finally… is the story of the film.