Review: Possession

Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill in Possession

There are marriages on the rocks and then there’s the fever-pitch nonbliss between Mark (Neill) and Anna (Adjani) in this head-spinning masterpiece from Poland’s Andrzej Zulawski (That Most Important Thing: Love). Mere seconds after the unhappy couple reunites outside their Berlin apartment—Mark has been away on some undisclosed bit of business—they’re already at each other’s throats about abandoned responsibilities and purported infidelities. Their bleating would be the frenzied climax of a good many movies, but Zulawski, whose own divorce reportedly inspired this gaping-wound Rorschach blotch, is out to shatter any and all conventional expectations.

Prepare yourself: Things only get crazier as Mark is consumed by jealous rage, and the manic Anna retreats to a decrepit apartment, where something literally monstrous is gestating. Doppelgängers materialize, Mark has several hilarious run-ins with a spastic karate-chopping horndog, and Anna has a subway-tunnel seizure of such bat-shit intensity that it surely helped solidify Adjani’s Best Actress win at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival. Possession incorporates more and more fantastical elements as it goes on—such as a spectacular goo-and-gore-covered creature built by E.T. designer Carlo Rambaldi—but the story somehow remains rooted in the harsh realities of human experience. That the film is much more than a gawk-at-it freak show is testament to Zulawski’s talent for making even the most exaggerated behavior resonate with pointed and potent emotion.

Follow Keith Uhlich on Twitter: @keithuhlich

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