I just want to say that I Excessive recommend you to go to possession Blind. Don’t watch the trailer. Don’t even finish reading this. Check it out now on Shudder, Criterion, or Metrograph. It is also available through Kanopy or Hoopla if your library provides access. Then come back so we can talk about it in the comments. Although it’s probably not for the squeamish.
possession This is the kind of movie that, even if you’ve had the entire story spoiled, can still be difficult to follow. After watching it twice, listening to three different podcasts, and reading multiple articles about it, I’m still not 100 percent sure what happened at various points in the movie. All I know is that I liked it.
You are instantly thrown into the story of a crumbling marriage set against the backdrop of the Berlin Wall. It’s an eerie metaphor for the divide between the stars – a very young and disarmingly handsome Sam Neill (Mark), and Isabelle Adjani (Anna), who turns in one of the most singular and disturbing performances in the history of cinema. It’s exhausting to watch Adjani on screen – she balances between shaky aloofness and high-octane babble with alarming ease and speed. This is the kind of performance you won’t be surprised to hear when you hear it basically gives Adjani PTSD.
The third standout performance comes from Heinz Benent, who plays Heinrich, the man Mark believes Anna is leaving him. He moves through every scene like a drunken ballet dancer, and there’s something almost Whisow-ian about his delivery. (It certainly doesn’t help that he keeps repeating Mark’s name.) In a more grounded film, the way he careens through the frame would seem absurd. But in the abstract nightmare of possessionBenant fits in perfectly, moving around, taking turns attacking Mark and coming at him.
Director Andrzej Żuławski not only delivers stellar performances from his stars, but he also creates live-action paintings. Mark and Anna are sitting across from each other on the corner of a bench in a café and discussing the terms of their separation. (Before Mark bursts into the café, throwing away the chairs and tables in one fell swoop.) Sam Neill forcefully swings a rocking chair back and forth as Focus skillfully tracks it down. The film is very beautiful.
That is, until this happens.
What starts out as a nasty acid trip about a failing marriage turns into nausea-inducing physical horror in its wake. It turns out that Anna is not leaving Mark for Henrik. In fact, Heinrich is just as desperate to get Anna back, to find her and make her his. Instead, she is haunted by what Anna Bogutskaya (host of The Final Girls podcast and author of Feeding the Monster) calls a “Lovecraftian fuck monster.”
It’s a bizarre collection of tentacles, bulging orifices and otherworldly humanoid features, created by Carlo Rambaldi, who won Academy Awards for special effects. Foreigner And at. It eats people. Their bodies, but also their souls. Anna seems to think this is some kind of deity, something sacred. She uses it to explore parts of herself that she had suppressed or lost in her relationship with Mark.
Other men in her life cannot satisfy her, so she makes a perfect lover. Which begins as a sticky creature, not unlike the child of eraserheadUltimately becomes Mark’s lookalike.
And then there’s the subway scene. if you ever heard possession At first, it was probably because of the scene. Adjani throws herself around a deserted tunnel, groaning, screaming, convulsing, before bleeding and God knows how all over the wet concrete floor. As a viewer, I feel tired after watching it. It’s the three most intense minutes ever committed on celluloid, and even though the rest of the movie was terrible, possession Would be worth watching just for this scene.
There are so many different readings of this film. I’m still not entirely sure what will happen in the end. Did his son Bob drown himself? Is Mark’s doppelganger the Antichrist? Is Helen also a doppleganger? (I think so.) What’s the deal with Henrik’s mom? Is Anna possessed by a ghost? Or is the nominal possession about the men in her life trying to assert ownership over her?
In the month since I saw this movie for the first time, I’ve been telling everyone about it. I can’t stop thinking about it or talking about it.
<a href