💬 Review Possesion (1981) by nomevisss

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nomevisss

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Name of the movie you are reviewing: Possesion (1981)

The slow descent of sanity between a young married couple, when the wife wants the divorce and his husband denies the request.

Review:
This movie was a complete adventure, even from the first 5 minutes when we started seeing Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani (which i mentioned her in one of my past reviews for another french movie named Elle), and oh boy! oh boy! again! We have a lot to uncover from here.

The movie started when Sam Neill character called Mark, come back from work and Anna (which it's one of two Isabelle Adjani characters) welcome him to go back to their house and conceal a heart-warming family reunion, or at least it was their planned after we have a nice conversation between them, naked on a poorly light (intentional) scene on bed trying to make love but Anna it's having troubles with her lubrication along Mark having troubles with maintaining an erection, just right after he greets his child on the bathroom some seconds ago in length movie time, but in movie time it's appreciated that happens hours later.

I can understand how the movie received a lukewarm review back in the day, it's an intense and audacious movie. One of my favorite aspects besides of the acting, it's the directing of Andrzej Żuławski, sometimes it's steady an angular, but other times it's very energetic (i'm talking specifically from the camera movement) there's usually a bad reputation to camera movements were it's shaky, but here it's different; it's not shaky because it makes it from rough movements, or voluntarily to make it seem like something that it's happening were the world around you should be shaky like an earthquake, or a creative decision (it comes to mind the scenes from The Hunger Games were we can't appreciate the scenes in the first minutes in the war camp), but it's more about how the camera man along the director are chasing the action from the actors; who may or may not have rehearse the movement around the stage were they have to shoot.

One of the moments who still get to my mind it's, were after we know Anna (Isabelle Adjani character's) it's possessed by a evil-force, and she it's fighting so this said force doesn't take the control of her body, like an internally soul fight; and damn, something that i've see in french movies it's the involuntary (or to some occasions, what it make it want to be seem as involuntary) slipped humour on some occasions, i have lots in these film; and though this scene were Anna it's getting out of the subway station to go to her house but she's having this internal fight with this said demon, it was frightening and shocking in the good way. I'm not an actor, but i have seeing interviews with actors talking about their approach and lots of them, regardless of research or experimentation, sayed that rehearse can be counterproductive if it's not regulated or condensed, different from learning lines, because the acting then because apparently dreadful at moment of work, i said this because i'm sure Isabelle along a choreograph they practiced these scene from the fighting to herself in the subway was rehearsed tons of times, and even still; how Isabelle it's performing and the camera work behind her with Andrzej along the camera man following her relentlessly and debating how to film her, it's just superb. There's time were even we can see the camera being up to close to Isabelle that they have to move far away, just enough, to continue filming her; something that i think in editing they could erase to give a more polished finish, but i'm so happy they didn't it.

I wanted to laugh at the beginning, thinking ''OK! there goes that involuntary technique'' until Isabelle drops to the wall and to herself a bag with groceries, and started getting a mix of milk, egg yolks and what i think it was chocolate milk too. There were times when she wasn't performing against a wall but far away from it that their hands even reach so close to the camera, that i think she even hit them accidentally; and those details are wonderful, it gives you a more realistic take (literally) of what's happening with her, and this scene it takes course more far in the movie, so you have the context instead of randomly make yourself think what that hell it's going on.

Also, the scene were she it's in the floor, and what looks like shitting, taking a piss, mucosa over her ears and crying blood at the same time, along screamings, screechings and an image that'll definitely will burn from time to time in the back of my head, superb acting, no wonder Isabelle was the recipient from nonetheless than a Cesar Award and a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for this role, sometimes this awards are, along their present but unknown for me, flaws, a better indicator of great work than the Academy's, even the Golden Globes too (up to a certain extension the last one).

And not just in that one scene the directing it's great, it's in lots of them; the first fight between Mark and Anna, when Anna it's having a conversation with the partner of the private detective Mark hired to follow Anna, the second confrontation with Mark and Heinrich which it's the lover that Anna was sleeping while Mark was traveling (it's important to add that Mark it's an international spy), the fight in the bar between Mark and Heinrich when he escapes from Ana's apartment after finding out he have killed 3 men than now are alien species converted, there's so much situations when not only the direction was splendid but the acting too.

I talked a lot about Isabelle Adjani power, which to be honest it's great how she it's such a beautiful actress that she doesn't care to not look pretty, and doesn't care to crawl, and spit blood; it's outstanding. Same with Mark, i really like Mark performance too so much, and it's sad that him didn't get as much attention as Adjani; this remind me of another great movie called ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'' which, Jim Carrey as the protagonist did such an outstanding job like Kate Winslet, but the attention go to her instead of both of them, nonetheless... He it's at the same league, for me, as Adjani, but with a different regard, he's present and there with her and she nurtures much of what Mark it's giving to her and vice versa, they are FIRE together, definitely.

The core of the story talks about how their marriage started to go downside when Mark came back from work and Anna it's been seeing another man, but all of this it's madman to Mark which it's deeply in love with Anna, but Anna felt enclosed waiting for him taking care of their child while she couldn't find other experiences for her, and then started being with Heinrich, to for some it's more attractive than Mark and, for what we can see in their house, more economically solvent, along more accomplished. The symbolism use in this movie relies a lot of demons, philosophical questions about the feel and sensation of being in love with somebody else and how that shape your personality, or how depends of how you feel with yourself, you start looking for what it complemented. There's a section in the film were Ana it's teaching ballet and for a moment you feel like she was breaking the fourth wall, but actually she was talking to a camera being recorded by Mark, she's being tough on a student that feels uncomfortable with one of the movements they're making at class and at the bar, then Anna in another scene, sit down on what appears the floor and she seems crying and sweating at the same time, talking about how her faith feed her luck and her luck makes her interested on search up for more content from her faith, and then started talking about how she it's two people in the same body, but how she doesn't sometimes pay attention to either of them, and likes how her husband includes her to do stuff because it takes stress from taking those desitions, but after awhile cyclically she needs to make desitions herself to pacify these people inside of her, a pandemonium for what it relates.

Mark it's obsessed with Heinrich because he wants to know what he give to Anna, so he can give himself all of that so she can't leave him; however, both of them can't leave what they have, it's a very toxic relationship if we start taking out all the surrealistic elements and body theatrics to express themselves. They fight, they cut themselves after a fight so they can keep calm and collected to stop it, they once almost at the end of the film have sex after she helps him get clean after he killed his lover (yes, the man that Anna cheat him) in the kitchen, this it's so messed up, so messed up, but i think i can understand all of this.

It's a exaggerated way to express the pain that can feel a pair of people who at the beginning of their relationship were in love but now they have to get in their own way. when i was searching up for the movie to understand better what happened, there was a sociopolitical context about how the countries were living at the moment the movie was made. It's about the separation between West Berlin and East Berlin, a symbol of what it's recall a disconnection of what was once, and how it symbolize too not only the separation from the Iron curtain and Poland, a country the director have to leave in order to keep making a living by making films, and the screenplay writing of the film started after the director himself was getting through a divorce with actress, Malgorzata Braunek. So now it's not only how the film talks about a painful divorce and breakup of family relations, which thankfully the kid doesn't have to be participant of the awful terrors of what their parents are going through.

It was important for me to read about the last part of the film, because i thought the figurativeness and surrealism was taking too much place and started lose myself on what was going on with the story, although it was easier for me to understand how we have two ongoing plots, the one's following the pair of protagonist going to there turmoil spiral about divorcing each other, and everything that means with surrealistic elements, along their in real life actions, Anna killed her best friend Marge when she wanted to take her kid out of her because she was losing control over not just her body, but her mind; and how Mark kill Anna's lover because he have intentions to go to the police to talk about how she killed a couple men in her new department were she stayed when she couldn't be with his new partner and how she wanted to be far away from her old home with Mark and his kid.

They're both killed at the end, of course, being persecuted by the police after their crimes, and how the movie ends with sirens, screams and explosions around, about an allusion of how something, like what Mark and Anna have been lived through the film it's the equivalent of what could be or end in a nuclear apocalypse, along the armed conflict that began in the Berlin city in the Cold War, dividing it in two different ones. I don't know how truest it's that both of the houses of the protagonist were ubicated one next to the wall and vice versa.

I'm glad i could research a little more about it, because at the end not just the elements of the movie started to take big hills, but at the same time it's contemplating a figurative historical context of how it feel for people in the city to live now in a dividing capital, and the diaspore of poland people have to escape from their country in order to continue making a living and look for a better quality life; this film actually covers so much more than a turbulent marriage at the end.

The same as the motif of doppelgangers, where each represented what they were expecting from their partners but never received, which i understood a little bit better with Ana's character because Adjani perform two characters, the other one it was the teacher of her kind; it was more direct when she opened the door to the doppelganger of Mark when ring the bell of what it seems like her department (which i have to say it was beautiful and i couldn't understand how, with respect, a kindergarten teacher could afford it) and then looks directly to the camera and smiles whilst the aforementioned sounds are madman going around in the background along some light changings in her face.

The movie was a ride that i enjoy a lot from the beginning to the end, and i was happy to search up more for everything i couldn't understand; i wish the allusions to the sociopolitical realities of the country the director choose to base the movie, along his personal feel, play more alone than just conceited the pain of a divorce young couple, instead of have to research to understand. A direct list of were the categories of said symbolism would have been at better use with a high-concept one instead of trying to divine which one it was for use, because only demons and supernatural creatures wasn't the only part of the catalogue from Zulawski relied on.

Would you recommend this to other users? If you have the patience, yes.

Rating(1-5): ⭐⭐⭐⭐
 
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