Possession Review

Upon rejoining his wife (Adjani) and child (Hogben) after a period of absence, Mark (Neill) discovers his spouse is leaving him. Initially, he believes she is leaving him for her lover, the portentous Heinrich (Bennent) but Anna (Adjani) has an even more sinister lover. One with more tentacles.

A bright eyed and bushy tailed Sam Neill stars in this wacky psychological horror, directed by Andrzej Zulawski, in which a couple’s marriage breaks down in cataclysmic mental and personal destruction. Although Possession was one of the original banned video-nasties, it also won an award for best actress in Cannes and nominated for a BAFTA.

More than one critic has compared Possession to Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist and not without reason. Both films study the simultaneous romantic, mental and sexual destruction of warring couples and physical manifestations of their psyches punctuate each film. Both films also boast some particularly ‘interesting’ dialogue – characters in Possession shout things at each other like, ‘I can’t exist by myself because I’m afraid of myself, because I’m the maker of my own evil!’ and ‘What I miscarried there was sister Faith, and what was left is sister Chance. So I had to take care of my faith to protect it!’And believe me, there is an awful lot of shouting in it, as well as sickening self mutilation and disturbing sexual congresses. It is not for the faint of heart.

Despite its wilfully alienating sequences (including a scene where Anna screams in a subway for a few minutes before oozing a bucketful of unmentionable goo from her orifices), Possession is oddly compelling and artfully straddles the borderline between unwatchable and unmissable. In spite of my reservations in regard to taste and decency, I was surprised and impressed by the film. However, Possession is far from a mainstream crowd pleaser and I’m sure many will be less forgiving of its fault than I. If you’re into European, plot-less psychological horror films involving tentacled beasts humping mentally unstable women in a metaphor for the pain of divorce, though, Possession is the film for you.