I was originally going to cover a different film from Andrzej Zulawski, that being his sci-fi film On the Silver Globe, but it turned out that it was technically unfinished. I might still want to cover it in the future, though, but when I’m in a better position to experience something like that. Instead, I chose his 1981 film Possession, and man, this film was something else. It’s like a cross between the psychological intensity of Polanski, the heightened and surreal nightmares of Argento, the visceral body horror of Cronenberg, and a heavy domestic drama. It’s something that I will not soon forget, I’ll tell you. I’ll try to detail the plot, but I almost feel like it would be better to see most of this film blind, so I’ll try to be careful with how far I go into things.
The story concerns a soon-to-be-not-married couple, Mark and Anna. Upon returning home from a spy mission, Mark finds that things aren’t very peachy keen between him and his wife. Anna states that she wants a divorce, and even though Mark suspects that she cheated, she claims that she didn’t and instead just feels like their marriage just isn’t working anymore. Mark is angered and in turmoil because of this, but reluctantly agrees to let Anna keep their apartment and have custody of their son, Bob. When he finds out that Anna had a lover all along, Mark spirals into alcohol-induced violent breakdown, leaving his new place in shambles. Upon sobering, he goes back to the old apartment, only to find Bob completely alone and no one around to care for him. He stays with Bob and tries to patch things up with Anna (though not fully trusting her with their son anymore), but Anna leaves. The next day, he gets a call from her lover, Heinrich, who tells Mark that Anna is with him now and he won’t see her again, only to completely sidestep that a moment later. Mark takes Bob to school and meets his teacher, Helen, who shockingly enough looks exactly like Anna, except with light brown hair and green eyes. Later on, Mark goes to Heinrich’s place to look for Anna, but Heinrich claims that she’s not there. He then elucidates how he allowed Anna to be herself with him and didn’t expect her to be anything else, unlike Mark. This results in a fight between the two, which Heinrich wins. When he gets back home and finds Anna there again, the two argue and Mark ends up hitting her several times. They have another argument, and Anna ends up intentionally cutting her throat with an electric knife (though not in a way that could kill her). Mark ends up intentionally cutting his own arm with the same knife as well, the reason behind these acts never being directly stated. After figuring out that Anna isn’t staying at Heinrich’s when she disappears from the apartment, he hires an investigator to tail her and see where she’s going. It turns out that she’s been living in a rundown apartment in a different part of town, and when he fakes being a window inspector in order to check her room out, he discovers a very disturbing sight. Sadly, I’m going to have to leave the synopsis here. I really think you should see where this film goes firsthand, so I will try my hardest to discuss what I can about the film without spoiling anything. Wish me luck, here we go.
I have to admit, I wasn’t sure if this film was going to work at first. The characters don’t exactly talk “naturally,” rather they tend to speak very directly about what they’re feeling or what ideas they have. It’s not unlike what you’d hear in certain art films, and it’s the sort of thing that can very easily come across as pretentious. Considering that heavy domestic drama was a factor here, I was worried that this delivery could hurt the believability and make it harder to relate to. However, the film manages to support this choice by creating a very odd and surreal vibe, wherein it’s almost less about feeling the “real world” situation directly and more about feeling all the tension, anger, and distress that surrounds it. In that way, and in addition to the comparisons I have already made, it’s not unlike something like Silent Hill, where the inner struggles of the characters influence the feel of the town. I’m not sure if this film was an inspiration or not but given some of the settings within and a certain grisly element that I can’t talk about without spoiling, I could definitely believe that it was. In general, the film does a great job of creating this sort of despairing headspace: the settings are often very dreary and/or rundown, the color palette favors dark and bleak choices like grays and blues, the music is just the right sort of eerie and uncomfortable 80’s synth, and the actors are able to capture both the more heightened and aggressive emotions the characters go through and also the sort of “belying what’s going on underneath” feel when they’re trying to maintain composure. In fact, the latter seems to be a major factor in the film’s concept, as even though the characters speak rather forwardly most of the time, they’re still not entirely direct with the truth of what they are or what they want. Mark makes all sorts of statements about how awful Anna’s being and what she’s putting him and their son through (even though he still ultimately wants to be with her), while Anna constantly claims that she despises him and hates being around him (even though she keeps coming back). The thing is that this isn’t just obscuring their desire to still be together, as there’s something even more self-serving afoot here: they don’t want each other, they want the person that they think the other should be. They’re not truly seeing each other as people, but more so as things that they can use or get things out of. Mark goes on and on about Anna’s behavior and seems somewhat reasonable on the surface, but he always talks to her in this condescending sort of way that implies that “she should be more this way or that way” and things of that nature. Anna, on the other hand, while seemingly upset over how Mark treats her, isn’t a saint either, as she seems to want to have it all with both Mark and Heinrich and neither all at once (Mark for the family stability and Heinrich for the sensual thrill) and will drop in and out of their lives as she pleases. This is the reason for Helen, the teacher, who looks a lot like Anna. She is Mark’s ideal vision of Anna: calm, kind, not demanding, etc. This kind of gives a new meaning to the film’s title being “Possession.” When you hear that name, you’d think that the movie would be about demonic body control or a psychosis that feels similar to that, and it certainly seems to be playing with those ideas on the surface: Anna mostly starts behaving so erratically after she leaves Mark the first time, and there’s even a scene where she has what seems to be a psychological fit (and a very convincing one, I, and the folks I was watching it with, felt). However, “possession” could also be referring to how the characters see each other, as a possession, an object that they want to have. Hell, even Heinrich, who claims that he’s some zen-enlightened higher thinker, is mostly just using this veneer to both take, and justify his taking of, sexual gratification from women. Considering that Zulawski was going through his own divorce at the time, you have to wonder if he was evaluating both his and his wife’s views on their marriage or just how people can go into relationships with self-serving motives. Now, I do think that some will read this film as misogynistic, since Anna is generally the more outwardly sadistic and twisted one of the two, and I can kind of understand that, but this isn’t a case like The Room where the man is completely infallible, and the woman is one-dimensional and heartless. Both characters have clear faults and unhealthy obsessions/behaviors, so while Zulawski might have been spiting his wife a bit, he at least doesn’t portray the other side as a completely blameless victim. In addition, Anna’s mental spiraling (and the reason behind it) seemed similar to something like an addiction taking over her life, and anyone that’s seen people lose themselves to drugs can tell you how messed up those people can get. I’m running short on time, so the last thing I’ll mention is that there might be some political subtext to the film too. I don’t think I have enough information to fully delve into it, but the fact that this was shot in the still divided Berlin, that Mark is an international spy, and that (small spoilers) the finale of the film involves what sounds like a bombing going on outside, I’d have to think that there’s some kind of commentary going on there. That might be something to look into after you watch it, but for now, I’ll wrap things up here.
I very much enjoyed Possession, or as much as one can “enjoy” a heavy and twisted film like this. I was very glad that it pulled off the kind of experience it was going for, and I am curious to see more Zulawski in the future. While I do recommend this film, I also understand if you decide to decline if the subject matter, or just the experience overall, is too triggering to you. This is not an easy film, even with the semi-stylized approach, so I hope my review can help you judge if this film is right for you. See you next week, everyone.