Possession (1981)
A film by Andrzej Zulawski
This film is very strange and absorbing. It's an enigmatic film that needs several viewings to connect with it. It is laden with anger, anxiety and hysteria. It was actually included on the DPP's list of 'Video Nasties' in the UK in the early eighties.
The story involves a man named Mark (Sam Neill) who arrives home after being away on his mysterious job (possibly a government secret agent) and is told by his wife Anna (Isabelle Adjani) that she is having an affair with another man named Heinrich (Heinz Bennent). The film then goes into a convoluted mode of visceral frenzy.
Isabelle Adjani gives an extremely powerful performance as the crazed wife (think of Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant, and then some more); in one scene in particular in a subway she is irrationally wild. The film is added more surreal flavour because Adjani plays two characters in the film, the other being the couple's son's teacher. Heinz Bennent is also in similar form as the creepy and odd Heinrich, he just looks like Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lectar. Anna leaves Mark and moves into a large vacuous apartment, where in one of the rooms she has sex with a strange slimy creature, whose purpose is to evolve and change into a doppelganger of Mark. The creature special effects were by Carlo Rambaldi, who worked on the creatures and special effects on films such as Alien, Dune, E.T. and Cat's Eye. The ending is really weird. I don't want to say anything else about the film except watch it, if you already haven't. If you liked Lost Highway, you'll like Possession.
