FANS OF MINDFUCK CINEMA shouldn’t miss this weekend’s screening of a new, uncut 35mm print of Possession, Andrzej Żulawski’s 1981 exploration of jealousy and madness. Made in the aftermath of a messy divorce and Żulawski’s exile from his native Poland, it’s a movie so relentlessly strange and so soul-shatteringly unnerving that it defies synopsis.
But here goes: Anna (Isabelle Adjani) tells her husband Mark (Sam Neill) that she has been seeing someone else. He goes crazy and confronts the lover; she hides out in a secret apartment from both men. When Mark hires a private eye to trail her, something unspeakably horrific is revealed. To say more is both spoilerish and pointless: Possession‘s plot progresses in a way that can only be interpreted by the subconscious. Dreams become reality and terrors are both vocalized and visualized; the film shifts between Anna and Mark’s perspectives so that it’s impossible to fully parse the symbolism.
There’s a scene of Adjani alone in a Berlin subway station that’s one of the most brutal things I’ve ever seen—she’s absolutely incredible in this, and she reportedly had trouble recovering from the role for years. I bet Żulawski did, too; a few years later he took up with an Adjani doppelganger less than half his age named Sophie Marceau.
Adjani attempted suicide after this role. There are really things you shouldn’t subject an actress to — and Zulawski is a merciless misogynist. That said, it’s a very unique and powerful film for lack of better description. Yikes. Maybe, hopefully, this means more of the restored Zulaswki prints will come this way.
I’ve never heard of this film until just a couple of months ago when i accidentally discovered it on the youtubes. The film has been up-loaded, in its uncensored entirety there, and anyone can watch it right now. Very strange film, i’d say.