Possession

Finally!  Thanks to the might of the Blu-Ray player, I can watch “Possession”, a film that has been highly recommended, but that I have not been able to watch as I did not have anything that played in the format.  Well, now I do and, the best I can say of “Possession” in a few words would be “Holy shit that’s fucked.”  That’s not to say “Possession” is a bad film, far from it actually, but it is to say that it’s really dark, twisted and very, very confusing.

Like a great deal of arthouse type flicks, “Possession” is the kind of movie that doesn’t really focus on being sensible and more on the emotions of the characters with a surreal presentation.  And, like most of these types of films, it has to be watched multiple times to be fully understood.  It’s a challenging and intelligent film that packs a punch.  Even on first confused viewing, the film is going to give you an emotional gut punch that very few films do, regardless of genre.

While the box art and trailers would imply this is some kind of extremely sexual Lovecraftian horror story, that’s not exactly what “Possession” is.  Oh, it’s got eldritch abominations, murder and sex, but at its core, “Possession” is a film about a disintegrating domestic partnership.  It’s not so much a horror film as it is a drama and a love story.  I won’t risk spoiling the plot, so we won’t be going into much of a synopsis or anything here, but I will say this; “Possession” is quite possibly the most realistic depiction of domestic disputes/violence I’ve ever seen on film.  As someone who has witnessed such disputes and lived under the roof of married couples who had such disputes, I can, with certainty, say that “Possession” gets this exactly right.  The dialogue between the characters, the screaming, the body language, all of it is executed scarily accurately.  Which, is no surprise, as a little trivia about the filmmaker says that he was going through a troubled divorce when he wrote the film.

Since I’m not looking to spoil the film outside of the basics, I’ll focus instead on the performances and cinematography.

First off, the performances, holy shit the performances.  Sam Neil is great, as always, but Isabelle Adjani absolutely steals the show.  She gives one of the most mesmerizing and real performances I’ve ever seen.  Adjani gives, possibly, the single greatest performance I’ve ever seen in my life.  From subtle variations of the characters personality and emotional state to the spastic, psychotic episodes, I’ve not seen anyone pull anything like this off, especially with such efficacy.  You love, hate and pity her all at the same time.  It’s a layered and nuanced performance and goes a long way to being the main selling point of the movie alone.  Seriously, the fact that she won no Oscar for this performance has to be the single greatest Oscar snub ever.  Take your Leonardo DiCaprio memes and shove it, this woman here, she deserves all the awards.  I cannot describe how great this performance is, all I can say is, pick the damn movie up and watch for yourself.  Oh, and the rest of the cast does pretty good too I guess.

Endless splurging about performance aside, let’s splurge about the cinematography.  Every, single, frame, is, wonderful.  In the tableau styles of classic noir and early expressionist pictures, Andrzej Zulawski makes sure that not a single frame is wasted.  Every shot in this film is blocked and handled with the utmost care.  There are many images and scenes that will stand-out in this film, even if you ultimately end up hating the whole thing.  And I don’t mean stand-out images because they’re extreme or violent in the way a film like “Hostel” would stay with you.  No, I mean they’re beautiful, with meticulous framing and composition.  Granted, some scenes will stand-out due to more extreme occurrences, but these are honestly a rarity.  Images like Adjani looking up like a scared child at a cross are the kind of images that will stay you far longer than anything that only sticks due to shock value.

If you’re a fan of film, you owe it to yourself to, at the very least, watch the film for the performances and the cinematography.  These alone are strong selling points, but the whole stands strong.  This is the kind of movie that really showcases how powerful the medium can be and really helps one to understand why it’s one of the most respected artistic mediums of the past 100 or so years.  It’s dark, it’s violent, it’s surreal, but under all the muck, is a poignant and powerful story about a violently crumbling relationship and the things we find and build on broken foundations.

Watch it!

(Note: as I have only seen this once, I may do another write-up after I watch the film a few more times and better comprehend its narrative and themes, in which case, I will also go further into detail in regards to the plot and my overall feelings)