#200: Possession

Release Date: May 27th, 1981

Format: Theater (Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA)

Written by: Andrzej Żuławski

Directed by: Andrzej Żuławski

4 Stars

Possession is one of the most affecting, provocative movie-going experiences I’ve ever had.

I’m also not sure exactly what to make of it. 

And that’s okay. 

Like many Americans who grew up on a steady diet of Hollywood films growing up, I’m accustomed to the particular narrative tropes and arcs and rhythms that make up the legacy of that industry’s storytelling tradition. 

It wasn’t until I got further into my English undergrad courses that I learned it’s okay to sit with material that has no easy answers (in that case it was with prose, but the same sentiment applies to film). It’s okay to fumble around in the dark for the key that might unlock a work of art, and not quite be able to grasp it. 

That was the experience I had with Possession tonight. I’m not confident that I have the right key to unlock it, but isn’t it fun to penetrate the lock and see if it turns?

As for the surface of the story, it’s about a couple, Mark (who I believe is British) and Anna (who speaks with a French accent), who live in Berlin with their young son, Bob. Mark wants a stable domestic homelife, and is dismayed to learn that Anna is cheating on him with a free-spirited, middle-aged (and hilariously ridiculous) German man named Heinrich. 

Mark and Anna break up, despite the fact that Mark is clearly still in love and is clearly still willing to accept Anna back into his life if she will just domestically conform. But Anna can’t do that. She seems tormented, stuck between wanting to be alone and not wanting to completely sever her ties to others.

After she leaves the family and moves into her own apartment, Mark is left as the sole caretaker for Bob, and wouldn’t ya know it, when he takes Bob to school he finds that his teacher, Helen, looks remarkably like Anna (but with green eyes, played by the same actress, Isabelle Adjani). Helen is warm, submissive, and stable - everything that Mark seemingly wants in a partner. 

Meanwhile, Anna is living in her derelict apartment, and she is cultivating some sort of blob of a creature with tentacles. Her mental state is getting worse. She murders a private investigator hired by Mark to keep tabs on her, and then murders the private investigator’s romantic partner. When Heinrich visits the apartment, she even attacks him. And the creature grows.

This all culminates in a bunch more deaths, Mark and Anna hooking back up, Anna hooking up with her blob creature thing, and then introducing to Mark the blob creature thing, which has now morphed into a doppelgänger of Mark, but with brown eyes.

More deaths ensue, and the film ends with a closeup of Helen, the teacher who looks remarkably like Anna but with green eyes, staring straight ahead at the camera. 

And that’s the best I can do as far as a summary of Possession.

On first impression, I want to most closely associate it with David Cronenberg’s The Brood. Both films seem to be a metaphorical expression of relationship trauma. With Possession, it seems that writer/director Andrzej Żuławski is exploring a couple that can’t co-exist: Mark wants dependency and can’t accept a loss of control; Anna is searching for an identity separate from a relationship, but now feels tied to the man who is the father of her child. 

This is all set along the border of West and East Berlin - East German border guards watch Mark as traverses to and from Anna’s apartment. 

And who is left standing at the end of the film? 

The doppelgängers: The blob creature who now looks like a composed, handsome version of Mark and the teacher, Helen, who looks like a nurturing, domestic Anna. 

Are they the idealized versions of their originals? The photocopies who’ve been color-corrected? 

Żuławski presents them as such.

It’s a stunning film, with bold compositions and camera movements, and indelible settings and performances. It’s as penetrative as it is affecting. I look forward to re-visiting it in the future and trying out some different keys to see if I can unlock it further.