Ep 168 - Andrzej Zulawski's POSSESSION (1981) Turns 45 — Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

POSSESSION (1981) d. Andrzej Zulawski (France/West Germany)

Tonight, we dive deep into the abyss of challenging cinema with Andrzej Zulawski's Possession (1981). Deliberately abrasive and queasy, the idiosyncratic Polish director's best known film assails its audience from the opening scenes and never lets up for a second, leaving the viewer exhausted, exasperated, and exhilarated.

Returning home from a vaguely defined covert mission, Mark (played by the late great Sam Neill) is alarmed to find that the relationship with his wife Anna (Isabelle Adjani) has disintegrated into complete hostility and disgust. He soon discovers that she has taken up with several lovers, one of which might not be entirely… human. (F/x wizard Carlo Rambaldi designed the memorable creature effects.)

A technically astounding film, with Bruno Nyutten's cinematography swirling about the locations and characters with orgiastic glee while Andrej Korzynski's electronic score buzzes and pops. Neill and Adjani unleash extraordinary high-wire performances that rival anything these fine artists have done before or since (Adjani would win Best Actress Awards from both Cannes and the Cesars, and after witnessing her wrenching, utterly selfless showstopping aria of suffering in the train tunnel, who could deny her?) and they are surrounded by a marvelous ensemble of quirky and compelling players that toy with each other and the audience.

Brutally trimmed by 50 minutes (!) with entire sequences reshuffled, the original U.S. and UK releases were as notorious a bit of butchery as they come – the already challenging movie (later labeled as a Video Nasty by the British Board of Film Censors) floundered and disappeared. Thankfully, it has since reappeared on home video in its complete form, and we hope tonight's conversation continues to boost and brighten its signal, attracting further rediscovery by fans worldwide.

Join AC and his bravura panel of guests (Nile Arena, Emily Barney, Dominic Conti, Sophie Gordon, Thomas Puhr) as we celebrate 45 years of POSSESSION!

------------------------------------

NILE ARENA has created cinema collectives, worked the film festival circuit, and lent his voice to podcasts dedicated to the silver screen. His literary/weird fiction journal, Success Stories, is available now at some of the places books are sold.

EMILY BARNEY studies Czech language and is obsessed with Czech and Slovak movies. She's appeared on The Projection Booth Podcast's Czecht