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Possession (1981)

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Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Self-exiled Polish directors - like Walerian Borowczyk - who wind up doing art movies in Paris tend over the years to go over the top in the sex/horror stakes. But Zulawski goes Grand Guignol in one leap with an outrageously sick story, filmed in English, about a schizoid housewife (Adjani, acting like a terminal rabies victim) who deserts husband and lover for an affair in a deserted Berlin apartment with a piece of fungus that grows into a many-tentacled monster and eventually metamorphoses into her husband's doppelgänger. Confused? Don't look for logic, don't ask why Adjani mutilates herself with an electric knife, or why Carstensen (playing a hooker) affects a clubfoot, don't expect any relief from the miscarriage scene (buckets of oozing blood and pus), and above all don't see this on a full stomach. Turkey of the year, even though the main ingredient is pure ham.

Author: MA

Time Out Film Guide

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User reviews of this film

John said...

Posted on Oct 24 2010 21:21 Fantastic film

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WK said...

Posted on Mar 28 2008 13:32 This film is amazing. I saw it last night for the first time and am still reeling. An extraordinary personal and political statement. It does to me what great art of any kind will do: it speaks to me in what seems to be a secret language about me and the world I live in that at the same time I feel compelled to try and decipher and share with everybody.
There is plenty of logic. Like the best horror you realise that the most truly horrific elements of the film are the more subtle ideas being communicated beyond the apparently extreme scenes in the film. For me the extremity is not gratuitous: harrowing, terrifying and heartbreaking yes but not extreme for extreme's sake at all.
The honest and unflinching examination of the differences between the sexes and the subtlety of the political message called to mind The Unbearable Lightness Of Being. I regretted that my wife wasn't there to see it too and look forward to discussing this film with her once she has.
Highly recommended

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