Possession (1981)

Not all good movies are a comfortable watch.  For that matter, not all good movies come out as good movies.  Possession had the unfortunate luck to lose a good chunk of the movie upon release in the United States in 1981, with a good number of the scenes being reordered, a new soundtrack added and a theatrical release that was nowhere near what writer and director Andrzej Zulawski intended.  It was an incomprehensible mess and it failed at the box office.

That doesn't mean the real version of the movie is any less difficult.  What begins as a family drama about divorce evolves into a combination of a serial killer film and Lovecraftian horror before becoming decidedly more surreal as it spirals toward its ending.  It's one of those films that is exhausting to watch, both from the performances and from the constant camera motion, and it is also one of those films where the narrative can't be trusted after passing a certain point.  Nominally a horror film, and filled with many horrific images, it is like many European films where the narrative is secondary to the visuals and individual scenes.

Mark (Sam Neill) returns home from business to find that his wife Ana (Isabelle Adjani) wants a divorce.  He tries to figure out why and soon finds out that she has been having an affair with a man named Heinrich (Heinz Bennant) for quite a period of time.  Angry, he agrees to give up their West Berlin apartment and any claim to custody of their son Bob (Michael Hogben), but changes his mind after he arrives at the apartment to find that Bob was abandoned for a number of days while Ana went about her own life.

Mark decides to confront Heinrich who, it turns out, is also concerned because he has also not seen Ana since he returned from a trip.  Mark hires a detective (Carl Duering) to find out where Ana is going, and it turns out to be a rundown apartment in the Kreuzberg area of Berlin.  It is there she is keeping her true lover, a discovery that proves to be unfortunate for the detective and anyone else that comes near.  

Both Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani give some of their best performances.  Adjani's is a bit more intense, but Mark is going no less insane than Ana throughout, even if she becomes violently dangerous long before Mark hits his tipping point.  Heinz Bennant gives a strange, drugged-out performance as her lover, and it seems like almost everyone in the movie remains in motion as does the camera, providing quite a bit of interesting Steadicam work.  There are few scenes in the movie that allow the audience to catch its breath.  There is also a great creature design in this as well.

It is a shame that for the longest time Americans only knew it by its edited version.  That still has Ana's subway meltdown as well as most of the horror elements but does away with the parts of the movie that contain what Zulawski was aiming for.  He had recently been divorced, as well as forced to leave his native Poland, and made the decision to film in what was, at the time, a city divided by a militarized wall, which features in the film as both Mark's and Ana's apartments abut it.  It is a movie about involuntary separation and the pain it causes, and in this case it can be construed that most of the pain, despite Mark and Ana's constant heart wrenching arguments, is falling upon Bob.  

That gets to another disservice that was done with butchering the film.  Sometime just past the point that Mark confronts Heinrich, but not too much later after hiring the detective, what we as the audience see is not necessarily what is happening.  Adjani also plays Helen, Bob's schoolteacher, who develops romantic feelings for Mark and is the spitting image of Ana in looks, but the opposite in behavior.  Where Ana is wild and defiant Helen is quiet and submissive.  There are also other minor characters that appear where they are not supposed to be.  What is never revealed in much detail is if the fantasy world is that of Ana, Mark, Bob or all three.  

Possession is not a film that one casually puts on for enjoyment.  There is absolutely no reason to seek out any version except the full, uncut one.  If one is going to dive into this film they need the full effect in order to take from it what they will.  Just be prepared to be repulsed, confused and worn out by the time it wraps up.  

Possession (1981)

Time: 124 minutes

Starring: Sam Neill, Isabelle Adjani, Heinz Bennant

Director: Andrzej Zulawski