The stains won't come out

“What can I say? I’m at war against women. They have no foresight, there is nothing about them that’s stable, there is nothing to trust. They’re dangerous.” 

Image: www.horrorhappyhour.com

“Possession” (1982) dared me to watch it. It vomited in my face, it taunted me with its phalli. 

I persevered.
I had to finish it.
“Art horror”? Like hell.

“Possession” is one of the worst films I have ever seen, and I’ve seen many things, from Michael Dudikoff’s “American Ninja” movies to innumerable cheap horrors that never get theatrical releases. But this… this is cinema at its most pointlessly pretentious. It gave me an eye infection. 

(Spoiler warning - not that you should care in this instance.)

Directed by Polish filmmaker Andrzej Zulawski, “Possession” is about the relationship between a married couple in early 1980s Berlin. Mark (Sam Neill, professional dinosaur rampage survivor) and Anna (the beautiful Isabelle Adjani) are experiencing escalating marital strife. She’s apparently having an affair, and he breaks chairs (until the chefs take him down). Sometimes they take time out to wonder, “what about Bob?” Bob is their young son, and damn it, he needs his parents. But Anna is indeed getting it on with a kama sutra-martial arts expert and quoter of lines, while Mark meets one of Bob’s teachers who looks just like Anna. 

Anna moves out of the apartment, leaving Bob alone with increasingly paranoid Mark, but then he has reason to be paranoid, because his wife now has her own place which may or may not be inhabited by a monster straight from her damaged psyche. Yes: in one scene, Anna goes mad for around five minutes, and then gives birth to Faith conceptually and literally.  

One of the so-called ‘video nasties’ of the 1980s, “Possession” has always been on my cinematic periphery and when I saw it in the DVD store the other day, it called out to me. It's somewhat cult, somewhat acclaimed - Adjani had won the best actress award at Cannes for this in 1982 – half her dialogue is screamed, and as a result unintelligible – and Zulawski is apparently a rediscovered master filmmaker who has been obscure until recently. Obscure? Don’t get me started. There’s a lot of context in terms of how Zulawski meant for the film to comment on human conflict and paranoia, but the film’s a mess. 

"Possession" is difficult to watch not because it’s disturbing, but because of its ineptitude. People cut themselves with electric knives, vomit, get eaten by a Freud Bug; they talk, they scream, you could care less. I rarely say this, but this is a film to avoid at all costs, morbid curiosity be damned.