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By PAUL BRENNER
In director Andrzej Zulawski's commentary for his film "Possession" he declares,
"Films don't want to bite anymore, they want to lick." Well, get out the tongue
depressor boys 'cause "Possession" bites like a mad, hungry dog. Isabelle Adjani
and Sam Neill star in this genre jumper that is half psychological character
study and half horror splatter film. Adjani and Neill play Anna and Mark, a
young couple in Berlin whose marriage is already an open, gapping wound before
the first frame of the film is revealed. Anna, in particular, reacts to Mark
with intense loathing and sexual disgust. So much so that she abandons him and
their young son for an illicit, carnal affair with what turns out to be with a
monster (a sticky, slithery, tentacled Carlo Rambaldi creation) borne out of her
own uncontained lust.
Zulawski's cinema of pain starts at a fever pitch with
jumpy, jagged scenes and with the performances played at a mentally deranged,
unhinged level. Adjani referred to the film as "psychological pornography" and
she isn't kidding. Zulawski brings excess to a new level as he has his two lead
actors perform like careening psychopaths. Adjani's performance is a case study
of free-range hysteria -- the high point being a crazed fit of psychic abortion
in a subway station that brings to mind the voodoo-induced spasms of Maya
Deren's "Divine Horsemen." (Adjani won the Palm D'Or for Best Actress at the
Cannes Film Festival for this performance.) Zulawski, who wrote the film during
the throes of a nasty and bitter divorce, peppers the film with such marital
hatred that it even filters down to the supporting players (Mark tells Anna's
friend, "I loathe you, Margie" and she responds, "I love seeing you miserable --
it's so reassuring.") No wonder in a film etched with such nasty bitterness that
the whole enterprise climaxes in an open-ended apocalypse.
Aside from Zulawski's commentary, the extras include the U.S. and international
trailers and an essay on Zulawski. |
