Themes: Self-Destructive Romance, Crumbling Marriages, Breakups and Divorces
Main Cast: Isabelle Adjani, Isabelle Adjani, Sam Neill, Heinz Bennent, Margit Carstensen, Michael Hogben
Release Year: 1981
Country: FR/WG
Run Time: 123 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Usually misattributed to the horror genre, this challenging and highly unusual drama stars Isabelle Adjani as a young woman who forsakes her husband (Sam Neill) and her lover (Heinz Bennent) for a bizarre, tentacled creature that she keeps in a run-down Berlin apartment. In the beginning, her husband knows nothing about the monster and sincerely believes that his wife is insane. He has her tailed by private detectives, whom she kills and feeds to the creature. Still unaware of what has happened, the husband contends with the reserved and inadvertently seductive presence of his wife's look-alike (also played by Adjani), a schoolteacher who frequently comes to tutor his son while his wife is away. Though tempted by her quiet goodness and beauty, he is still passionately in love with his wife and even after he finds out about the murders, he stays by her side and helps her conceal her crimes. Filmed amidst the oppressive backdrop of the Berlin Wall by the expatriate Polish director Andrzej Zulawski (who was unable to work in his homeland after too many clashes with the authorities), the picture is so relentlessly intense and so deliberately esoteric, that most viewers would find it too hard to connect with. Still its symbolism, its unbridled and flashy directorial style, and the tour de force performance by Isabelle Adjani earned this unique tale a cult following in Europe. The version originally released in the U.S. had 45 minutes chopped out; in this form, it is barely comprehensible and looks like a cheap, gory feast. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide
Review
Director Andrzej Zulawski achieved his most widespread international success with this elliptical, allegorical tale of a disintegrating marriage and its grotesque byproducts. True to form, the director was able to coax deliciously unrestrained performances from Isabelle Adjani and the then-unknown Sam Neill as the bitter couple trapped in a torturous relationship. Zulawski's set-up is tantalizing: aided by the fluid, hypnotic camerawork of Bruno Nuytten, he uses the stark, oppressive cityscape of Berlin to mirror Neill's ever-increasing dread and discombobulation. Evoking elements of Vertigo (1958) and Repulsion (1965), Possession mixes the mundane with the shocking to create a compelling metaphor for the havoc that one man's obsession (and one woman's scorn) can wreak. Though the film's final act focuses on the more horrific elements of the tale -- namely, a bed-ridden, boyfriend-consuming creature which resembles a giant lower intestine, created by E.T.'s alien designer Carlo Rambaldi -- Zulawski never loses sight of the eerie, atmospheric qualities that elevate Possession above a mere genre film. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Shaun Lawton - Zimmerman; Johanna Hofer - Mother; Carl Duering - Detective; Maximilian Ruethlein - Man with pink socks; Leslie Malton - Sara; Herbert Chwoika; Ilse Bahrs
Credit
Holger Gross - Art Director, Ingrid Zore - Costume Designer, Andrzej Zulawski - Director, Marie-Sophie Dubus - Editor, Suzanne Lang-Willar - Editor, Andrzej Korzynski - Composer (Music Score), Andrzej Jaroszewicz - Camera Operator, Bruno Nuytten - Cinematographer, Jean-Jose Richer - Production Manager, Marie-Laure Reyre - Producer, Karl Laabs - Sound/Sound Designer, Andrzej Zulawski - Screenwriter, Frederic Tuten - Screenwriter, Carlo Rambaldi - Creature Effects, Carlo Rambaldi - Creature Design
Mark (played by Sam Neill) returns home to Berlin to find his wife Anna (Isabelle Adjani) is leaving him for unclear reasons. He initially suspects an affair and hires detectives to track her, but gradually discovers clues that something far stranger is afoot. Instead, his wife leaves him and her lover, Heinrich (Heinz Bennent). What follows is a series of horrific, compelling and surreal events.
Maximilian Rüthlein - Man with pink socks (as Maximilian Ruethlein)
Thomas Frey - Pink sock's acolyte
Leslie Malton - Sara, woman with club foot
Gerd Neubert - Subway drunk
Movie background
It was filmed in Berlin, West Germany. The director has stated that he wrote the screenplay in the midst of a messy divorce. Viewers have found it difficult to properly classify as drama, horror, or suspense, but there are elements of all three present in the movie. Some reviewers have interpreted Possession as an intense drama focusing on the effects of marital problems and stress upon children.
The film was very controversial when first released and heavily edited for distribution in the United States. After an initial limited theatre release in the United Kingdom, Possession was banned as one of the notorious Video Nasties, although released uncut on DVD in 1999. It gradually developed a minor cult following among arthouse aficionados.
The main item of controversy was the intense performance of Isabelle Adjani, who is seen in something akin to an epileptic seizure in a subway station tunnel as fluids ooze from her body. (Some have interpreted this as a miscarriage.) Her performance is harrowing and caused an outcry. In another scene, she is seen making love to a tentacled creature. All these scenes contributed to the dark and disturbing nature of the piece.
Notes of interest
Special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi assisted in creating the tentacle creature featured in the film.
