Possession

Horrorphile

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Possession

October 24th 2007 05:11

I first discovered Possession (1981) during the Incredibly Strange Film Festival in Wellington, New Zealand, one year during the early 90s. It was a late night screening on a Friday night and there was only a handful of people in the cinema. My friend and I had never heard of the film, but it was a science-fiction horror by a Polish director starring Isabelle Adjani and Kiwi ex-pat actor Sam Neill, so we were very intrigued, to say the least.

The film turned out to be one of the most bizarre horror movies we’d ever seen; a truly unique, uncompromising and outlandish viewing experience. It had one screening and that was it. Barely anyone saw it, and those who did were haunted by the movie’s imagery for days, weeks, even years after. I didn’t see it again until I moved to Sydney, during the summer of 97-98.

Sam Neill as bewildered Mark

I discovered an old VHS copy at the local video store. But it wasn’t the same. It was a horribly edited version. But more than severely shortened (around 40 minutes had been cut), the movie had been re-edited with alternate takes and additional optical effects. In fact the entire ending of the movie had been radically changed. Of course, this only piqued my interest in the movie more so. Five or so years later I found a DVD version put out by Anchor Bay which is the definitive director’s cut. It is this version I’m reviewing.

Isabelle Adjani as hysterical dark-eyed Anna

The setting is cold Berlin. Mark (Sam Neill) is some kind of secret agent/spy who has returned from an assignment. He is debriefed and arrives home to find that all is not well on the domestic front. His wife Anna (Isabelle Adjani) has left him for another man. Sam searches out his wife’s lover and finds him; Heinrich (Heinz Bennett), an intellectual neo-hippie. But Heinrich insists Anna has moved on. And she has, to another tryst, but no ordinary lover; an inhuman creature, a disgusting slimy tentacled beast, inexplicably born from her, which she now copulates with at regular intervals. To make matters more complicated Anna is killing others to protect and feed her hideous lover.

Possession Heinz Bennett and Isabelle Adjani

Heinz Bennett as Heinrich with Anna

Mark tries in vain to save the marriage, for their son if anything. But Anna is distant and impulsive. Mark hires a private investigator, which eventually leads Mark in confronting Anna and her grotesque paramour, only to discover - nightmare upon nightmare - the diabolical squid-like creature appears to be metamorphosising into a doppelganger of Mark. To complicate matters Mark also meets his young son’s teacher Helen (Isabelle Adjani again, stunning in pony tail and green contacts) who bares an uncanny resemblance to Helen. Sanity and reality and inhumanity collide.

Anna has a rather messy turn in the subway

Director Andrzej Zulawski has been quoted as saying that he pitched the movie to Hollywood as “The story of a woman who fucks with an octopus.” That’s the kind of premise pitch that’ll get you the reply “You’ll never eat lunch in this town again!” But, of course, that’d be missing the movie’s point entirely. After watching Possession, with all its symbolism and allegory and ambiguity and supernatural mysticism, you’d agree with Zulawski’s obtuse and ironic sense of humour.

Isabelle Adjani as mysterious Helen

Possession deals with several themes and issues; primarily it is a film about the break-up of a marriage, but in conjunction with this deconstruction of a once loving, now volatile relationship, is the insidious spectre of betrayal and infidelity. There’s also the psychotherapeutic thread of releasing one’s inner Id, of male physical inadequacy, of female emotional instability, the trial of separation and abandonment. And then there’s the nightmare fear children sometimes possess that their parents are not their real parents.

Sensational European poster art

The pitch and tone of the film veers from hysteria to intense anxiety, with little room to breathe in between. Adjani won the Palm D’Or for Best Actress, and it is undeniably a performance worthy of accolades, apparently she tried to commit suicide after seeing the finished movie (!) As for Sam Neill, not the greatest actor as a younger man, he’s aided by Adjani’s calibre, as well as German actor Heinz Bennett.

Apart from the unusual subject matter what also sets this arthouse-horror apart from anything else you’re likely to see (apart from perhaps Eraserhead and Begotten) is the camerawork; there are several argument scenes between Mark and Anna where Zulawski has the actors deliver their lines straight to camera. It’s unnerving, but the perversion works. The screenplay has three distinct parts; the domestic upheaval, the creature horror, and the escalating frenzy of pursuit and revelation.

Anna engages in monstrous sex

It is Carlo Rambaldi’s ingenious and altogether repulsive creature effects which stick in the mind long after the movie has finished, which includes Mark discovering a sweaty naked Anna in the throes of “passion” with the writhing, humping humanoid uttering the words “Almost ... almost …” Ergh!

Mark is confronted by Anna and his black-eyed doppelganger

Possession is not an easy film to understand, which in my books makes for a more fascination viewing and post-viewing analytical experience. That Hollywood distributors thought by excising a third of the movie they’d make more sense of the plot is plain ludicrous. However it created an equally compulsive movie. But don’t ask me about the pink socks.

Possession Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani

In sickness and in heath, til death do us part

Possession is a flawed masterpiece; an unearthly beast borne from bitterness, misery, lust and madness. It seethes and lurches, and makes huge demands of the viewer, but it rewards in ways only a truly philosophical film can, that and its powerful visceral qualities. Think Cronenberg’s The Brood (1980) meets Alien (1979) meets Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) under the estranged guidance of Lars Von Trier … and you might get the slap of a existential idea of what in Devil's name Possession is about.

Here's the original theatrical trailer:

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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Comments

5 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Damo

October 24th 2007 06:15

Interesting
I would expect this to turn up on SBS one dark night.

Comment by Nonymous

October 24th 2007 07:37

Philosophy Blog

Thanks Bryn. Intriguing movie, and eloquent review, and Ms Adjani strikes me as highly attractive.

Comment by Bryn

October 24th 2007 08:27

Horrorphile

Damo, you'd be damned lucky to find turn up Possession on SBS ... despite the subject matter.

Nony, yes, intriguing is an understatement, cheers for the props, and yes, oh yes, Isabelle is at her most stunning (alongside her latter role in Queen Margot)

Comment by David O'Connell

March 14th 2011 03:34

20/20 Filmsight
Screen Fanatic

Bryn, I've just seen this film for the first time this morning after recently buying the new DVD from the UK -- and Holy Mother of Christ!! It's incredible stuff!! Absolutely loved it, even though it's absolutely fucking bonkers. The direction, the acting, the sparingly used electronic score - all sensational. This has blown me away mate, the sequence with Adjani in the subway tunnel will linger longest I think, never seen anything like it. Definitely now one of my favourite horror films of all time. I'm tempted to put it in and watch it again.