Possession (1981)

The film follows closely a young couple living in Berlin during the Cold War era. Marc (Sam Neill, My Brilliant Career, The Piano) is an ambitious professional who regularly reports to important people that make important decisions. After one such report, he returns home and discovers that his wife Anna (Isabelle Adjani, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Subway) has started seeing another man. Barely able to contain his anger, he hires a private detective to follow Anna and find out when and where she meets her lover.

The detective follows Anna to a cheap apartment in a rundown building only a few blocks away from the Wall. He then discovers that Anna has not one but two lovers. However, before he can contact Marc and let him know, something terrible happens to him.

Meanwhile, after a series of violent quarrels Marc forces Anna to confess that she has been cheating on him. She also reveals the identity of her first lover (Heinz Bennent, The Serpent's Egg, The Tin Drum), a new-age cocky playboy well versed in kung fu who lives with his elderly mother. Marc confronts him, hoping that he would go away, but Anna, now seriously depressed, abandons both men and goes back to the cheap apartment where her second lover has been waiting for her.

Possession tells two very different stories. The first is about the violent and rather bizarre collapse of Marc and Anna's marriage. This is the story most critics in the West love to write about. It is hardly surprising because it is obviously the only story that makes sense to them. This story is also the reason why Possession is frequently labeled "horror film".

The second story is about a very cruel closed system that is slowly but effectively transforming people into monsters. For some the transformation is so disturbing that they can't endure it and lose their minds before the process is completed. Director Zulawski had firsthand experience with this process but managed to escape the system before it was too late. In Possession, Marc and Anna are not so lucky.

The excess and gore in this film effectively mask Zulawski's condemnation of the system. In 1978, this exact same approach within a different context was used by the Polish director in his On the Silver Globe, whose production was halted by the Polish authorities after they became suspicious of its intent. (On the Silver Globe is a science fiction film but also with a clear political message). In other words, the "horror" in Possession is nothing more than a needed distraction in what is essentially an angry political film.

Adjani's performance in Possession is undoubtedly one of the greatest from the early '80s. It is indescribably intense and truly unsettling. In 1981, the French beauty won a well deserved Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Possession was lensed by renowned French cinematographer Bruno Nuytten (Andre Tecnine's Barocco, Claude Berri's Jean de Florette/Manon des sources). Some of the special effects in the film were done by the great Carlo Rambaldi (Ridley Scott's Alien, Steven Spielberg's E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial).