Let me simply say that I extremely advocate you go into Possession blind. Don’t watch a trailer. Don’t even end studying this. Go watch it now over on Shudder, Criterion, or Metrograph. It’s additionally out there via Kanopy or Hoopla in case your library supplies entry. Then come again so we are able to discuss it within the feedback. Although this most likely isn’t one for the squeamish.
Possession is the form of movie that, even when you’ve had the entire plot spoiled for you, could be troublesome to observe. After watching it twice, listening to a few completely different podcasts, and studying a number of articles about it, I’m nonetheless not one hundred pc certain what occurred at varied factors within the film. I simply know I liked it.
You’re dropped instantly right into a story a few crumbling marriage set towards the backdrop of the Berlin Wall. It’s a formidable metaphor for the division between the celebs — a really younger and disarmingly good-looking Sam Neill (Mark), and Isabelle Adjani (Anna), who turns in one of the singular and unnerving performances within the historical past of cinema. Watching Adjani on display screen is exhausting — She ricochets between unsettling detachment and high-octane delirium with alarming ease and velocity. It’s the form of efficiency that, whenever you hear it principally gave Adjani PTSD, you’re not shocked.
The third standout efficiency comes from Heinz Bennent, who performs Heinrich, the person Mark believes Anna is leaving him for. He strikes via each scene like a drunk ballet dancer, and there’s one thing nearly Wiseau-ian about his supply. (It definitely doesn’t assist that he retains repeating Mark’s identify.) In a extra grounded movie, the way in which he careens via the body would appear absurd. However within the summary nightmare of Possession, Bennent matches completely, rolling round, alternately assaulting Mark and approaching to him.
Director Andrzej Żuławski not solely coaxes gorgeously unhinged performances from his stars, he builds live-action work. Mark and Ana sit in a restaurant on the nook of a bench dealing with away from one another as they focus on the phrases of their separation. (Earlier than Mark tears via the cafe, hurling chairs and tables in a freakout for the ages.) Sam Neill violently pitches a rocking chair backwards and forwards as the main target expertly tracks him. The movie is just beautiful.
That’s, till it isn’t.
What begins as a nasty acid journey a few failing marriage turns right into a nausea-inducing physique horror in its again half. It’s revealed that Anna isn’t leaving Mark for Heinrich. In truth, Heinrich is simply as determined to get Anna again, to seek out her and make her his. As an alternative, she is shacked up with what Anna Bogutskaya (host of The Ultimate Women podcast and writer of Feeding the Monster) calls a “Lovecraftian fuck monster.”
It’s a grotesquerie of tentacles, oozing orifices, and uncanny humanoid options, created by Carlo Rambaldi, who gained Academy Awards for particular results on Alien and ET. It feeds on folks. Their our bodies, but in addition their souls. Anna appears to suppose it’s some form of deity, one thing holy. She makes use of it to discover elements of herself she has repressed or misplaced in her relationship with Mark.
The opposite males in her life can’t fulfill her, so she creates an excellent lover. What begins as a slimy creature, not in contrast to the newborn from Eraserhead, ultimately turns into a doppleganger of Mark.
After which there’s the subway scene. For those who’ve ever heard of Possession earlier than, it’s most likely due to this scene. Adjani hurls herself round a abandoned tunnel, grunting, screaming, convulsing, earlier than oozing blood and god is aware of everywhere in the moist concrete ground. As a viewer, I really feel drained after watching it. It’s three of essentially the most intense minutes ever dedicated to celluloid, and even when the remainder of the movie was horrible, Possession could be price watching only for this scene.
There are such a lot of completely different readings of this movie. I’m nonetheless not solely certain what occurs on the finish. Did their son Bob drown himself? Is Mark’s doppleganger the antichrist? Is Helen additionally a doppleganger? (I feel so.) What’s the cope with Heinrich’s mom? Is Anna possessed? Or is the titular possession concerning the males in her life attempting to exert possession of her?
Within the month since I first watched this film, I’ve instructed everybody I learn about it. I can’t cease fascinated by it or speaking about it.
