Possesion (1981)

[K1stpierre]

Discuss

[Jake Gittes]

In the early '80s, a maverick Polish director going through a hellish divorce could decide to put it on the screen as a feverish two-hour allegory involving the Berlin wall, gritty east-euro atmosphere, tentacled monsters, Cronenbergian body horror, surreal logic, a sustained paranoid vibe, explosions, car chases, pink socks, doppelgangers, what might or might not be a nuclear apocalypse, and a pair of heroic, spectacular lead performances from Sam Neill and (especially) Isabelle Adjani.

 

Andrzej Zulawski's Possession is truly unlike any other film I've ever seen, and in this case that's the highest compliment I can give. Thematically it fits in with other films that depict a dissolution of a marriage using genre elements, films like The Brood, Antichrist, and (supposedly, as I haven't seen it) Don't Look Now. But all these films, while united by this one theme, come from such uniquely personal places they can't help but differ in their approach, and Possession stands out from the pack in all of its own nightmarish glory. Words really don't do it justice, not unless I go far and deep into spoiler territory, which I don't really want to do - it's a movie that really needs to be discovered, and then either repulsed or (hopefully) amazed by. (It's impossible to be neutral about it). I fall into the latter category. Watched it for the first time five days ago and I can't get it out of my head and I don't want to. A bugfuck masterpiece.

[The Stingray]

Hypnotic, surreal, brilliant.

 

9.5/10