Possession (1981)
Possession is a complete mind-fuck of a movie, a full-on assault of your senses and one that just has to be seen to be believed. Unconventional and unsettling Possession will leave you gasping, with plenty to ponder after. By turns irritating, violent, uncompromising, overwrought, over-the-top, hysterical, chaotic it goes beyond mere celluloid and is as close to art as the medium gets. It’s a film to be studied and scrutinised, one that reveals more and more with each successive viewing. This is art house horror at its best and deserving of its growing cult reputation. It will also continue to divide opinion as it did do at its initial Cannes screening. There’s no in-between here, you will either love Possession or loathe it.
For a full two hours there’s plenty of screaming and some sloppy, gory moments that often come out of the blue. It leaves you feeling bruised from such brutal, raw and exposed emotions. You’ve never seen anyone get as full a use out of a rocking chair as Sam Neill’s character Mark does. It’s almost farcical to watch however the drama unfolding is too full-on for you to stop and laugh no matter how over-the-top things get at times.
The stunning Isabelle Adjani is outstanding, a real tour-de-force as both Anna and Helen. In fact it’s difficult to recall any female actor who gives themselves so fully to a role. She deservedly won the Best Actress at that year’s Cannes Film Festival (for both this and Quartet) as well as at the French César for the same category. Adjani has stated that it took her several years to get over playing Anna (it’s only a job sweetie!). Sam Neill matches Adjani completely, as her on-screen husband Mark, and often gets overlooked in the praise lavished on this film. He’s all pent up rage for the first half of the movie and goes places that many actors wouldn’t dare.
So what’s it all about? Hmmm…well let’s give you a plot overview, without spoiling too much, and let you have a watch and figure it out for yourselves. Mark returns from a secretive business trip away and fast learns that what he considered to be a happy marriage to Anna is far from it. In fact Anna would like a divorce. Like, right now. Mark’s reaction is akin to a full-on emotional breakdown. He wants to know why Anna has come to this conclusion, he wants answers and an exasperated Anna is unwilling to provide them aside from that she has found someone else. They have a young child, Bob (Michael Hogben) who for a good part of the story is referred to but very rarely seen, although much of his parent’s conversations naturally concern him.
Mark finds out that Anna is seeing a rather camp, dramatic individual called Heinrich, who lives with his elderly mother, and toddles round to see him only to end up the worst for doing so. However, not all in Mark’s life is painted black. His mood perks up considerably, and that’s probably not all that perks up, when he meets Bob’s teacher Helen. You see, Helen just happens to look like his bonkers missus Anna but one hair tug later, to confirm Helen’s not wearing a wig, and Mark is all smiles and evidently very keen on Helen. Quite why Bob has never mentioned that his teacher looks like his mother, or doesn’t have appeared to, is never brought up but still there’s happiness to be had with Anna so Mark starts up a relationship with her.
In the meantime Anna becomes increasingly more bizarre in her behaviour and one private investigation into her whereabouts reveals that she has been visiting a derelict building and having sexy time with a revolting looking creature. From that point on matters become more bloodied and bizarre for Mark, Anna and Heinrich and very confusing and surreal for the viewer. But stick with it, because, if you’re open to it, this is one hell of a trip.
Following his self-imposed exile from Poland director Andrzej Zulawski came up with the idea for Possession whilst dealing with a stressful divorce. If the situations acted out between Adjani and Neill in the movie are any reflection of that – boy, do you NEVER wanna get divorced! The bitterness in Zulawski’s writing is never more apparent than in the character of the second (human) lover Heinrich (Heinz Bennent); a manifestation of all the qualities the director disliked in a person. He’s wildly flamboyant, theatrical to the point you’d consider him a theatrical queen rather than a man capable of wanting to make love to a woman.
Zulawski doesn’t lose sight of the fact that as fractured as the central relationship is we are constantly reminded that the country Mark and Helen are living in, Germany, is too split in this case by the Berlin Wall (the film was released seven years prior to its coming down). The Wall can be viewed from their apartment and from where people with binoculars look back. It’s indicative of the many layers of which the director’s film has, reminding you that nothing here is to be taken just at face value but to be analysed and dissected too.
Special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi created the tentacled beastie/lover in a very short time and with little money at his disposal; a complete contrast to the weeks and weeks he had at his disposal, plus far more money, than he did on Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Rambaldi’s results are quite stunning considering and the tentacled beastie still looks good now, although at the time the producers thought it looked like a giant condom.
The main talking point when it comes to viewing Possession is the subway scene featuring Adjani. It’s stunning, brilliantly acted and entirely unexpected. At the start of the scene she appears deliriously happy and a tad unhinged before grunting, screaming, throwing both herself and her shopping around before…well, you’ll see. There’s no spoon feeding here; the viewer is left to decide just what the fuck is going on till it’s finally revealed in quite the grossest fashion.
Although it secured a limited theatrical run in the UK it was later banned upon its retail release as a ‘Video Nasty’, although never prosecuted, and heavily cut for its US release (down to ninety-seven minutes from its original two hours). A film this unique is difficult to pigeon-hole and subsequently it was mis-sold on its release as an out-and-out horror movie leading to its subsequent failure at the box office.
Possession may not make any sense but it damn sure grips and runs the gamut of emotions in a way that makes other flicks feel anaemic. It may disturb – you may consider it trash, but it’s undeniably powerful stuff and deserves to be viewed nonetheless. In a world where the majority of films produced are all relatively safe and formulaic Possession shows that cinema can also be about art, be unconventional and still provoke debate.
