IMDb >
Possession (1981)
Watch It
Buy it at Amazon
Rent it at blockbuster.com
Discuss in Boards More at IMDb Pro Add to My Movies Update Data
BETA
Discuss in Boards More at IMDb Pro Add to My Movies Update Data
Quicklinks
Top Links
trailers and videosfull cast and crewtriviaofficial sitesmemorable quotesOverview
main detailscombined detailsfull cast and crewcompany creditstv scheduleAwards & Reviews
user commentsexternal reviewsnewsgroup reviewsawardsuser ratingsparents guiderecommendationsmessage boardPlot & Quotes
plot summaryplot synopsisplot keywordsAmazon.com summarymemorable quotesFun Stuff
triviagoofssoundtrack listingcrazy creditsalternate versionsmovie connectionsFAQOther Info
merchandising linksbox office/businessrelease datesfilming locationstechnical specslaserdisc detailsDVD detailsliterature listingsNewsDeskPromotional
taglines trailers and videos posters photo galleryExternal Links
showtimesofficial sitesmiscellaneousphotographssound clipsvideo clipsPossession (1981) More at IMDbPro »
| Photos (see all 7 | slideshow) | Videos |
Overview
User Rating:
Release Date:
27 May 1981 (France) moreTagline:
She created a monster as her secret lover! morePlot:
A young woman left her family for an unspecified reason. The husband determines to find out the truth and starts following his wife... more | add synopsisAwards:
Nominated for BAFTA Film Award. Another 5 wins & 2 nominations moreUser Comments:
Harrowing portrait of a disintegrating marriage. moreCast
(Cast overview, first billed only)| Isabelle Adjani | ... | Anna / Helen | |
| Sam Neill | ... | Mark | |
| Margit Carstensen | ... | Margit Gluckmeister | |
| Heinz Bennent | ... | Heinrich | |
| Johanna Hofer | ... | Heinrich's mother | |
| Carl Duering | ... | Detective | |
| Shaun Lawton | ... | Zimmermann | |
| Michael Hogben | ... | Bob | |
| Maximilian Rüthlein | ... | Man with pink socks (as Maximilian Ruethlein) | |
| Thomas Frey | ... | Pink sock's acolyte | |
| Leslie Malton | ... | Sara, woman with club foot | |
| Gerd Neubert | ... | Subway drunk | |
| Kerstin Wohlfahrt | |||
| Ilse Bahrs | |||
| Karin Mumm |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parentsRuntime:
France:127 min | UK:118 min | USA:80 min (cut) | USA:123 min | Australia:123 minColor:
ColorAspect Ratio:
1.66 : 1 moreSound Mix:
MonoCertification:
Spain:18 | Australia:R | France:-16 | South Korea:18 | Sweden:18 (video rating) | UK:18 | USA:RFilming Locations:
Berlin, GermanyFun Stuff
Trivia:
The film originally appeared on the DPP 74 list of UK video nasties. It was banned but never prosecuted, and was eventually passed uncut by the BBFC in 1999. moreFAQ
What did I just see?more
more
Message Boards
Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Possession (1981) moreRecommendations
If you enjoyed this title, our database also recommends:
Show more recommendations
|
|
|
|
|
| La femme publique | Caligola | Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma | L'amour braque | Wild at Heart |
|
IMDb User Rating:
|
IMDb User Rating:
|
IMDb User Rating:
|
IMDb User Rating:
|
IMDb User Rating:
|
Related Links
| Full cast and crew | Company credits | External reviews |
| News articles | IMDb Drama section | IMDb France section |
| Add this title to MyMovies |









Imagine Bergman's 'Scenes From a Marriage' filmed by Dario Argento using Kubrick's 'Shining' steadicam. I can't pretend to have actually UNDERSTOOD this intellectually rigorous horror film, but I do know that it is arguably the most beautiful film of the 1980s, that ugliest of cinematic decades.
The chief source of this beauty is Zulawski's camerawork, unsettling, spacious, constantly mobile, it achieves the kind of elaborate shots you normally expect with cumbersome, expensive equipment with the nimbleness of a handheld camera. Static scenes in repetitive milieux are subjected to awesomely complex movements, as the camera encircles, tracks, reveals, blocks, opens up space, creating a narrative that never stands still, offering us different, usually startling viewpoints within the one scene.
What is most remarkable is its transformation of scale - the film is set in Cold-War Berlin, a famously constricted city; the plot takes place mostly in inhumanly modern apartments or on streets, and yet the sense of size, scale, space is as monumental as a Fordian Western. This is apt for characters who are simultaneously confined and alienated by their environment. Even scenes of flamboyant repulsiveness, the puling monster mounting Isabella Adjani, Mark's lavatorial dispatch of Heinrich, have a clarity of composition that is simply breathtaking.
Unlike most horror films, which open with images of normality against which to measure the transgression of terror, 'Possession' hurls us into its relentless unpleasantness in medias res. Zulawski opens at full speed and never lets up. Mark in his car looks out at a city he hasn't seen for some time as if it is an alien land, full of troubling images, including an iron cross. Anna rushes to meet him. We assume they are husband and wife, reuniting, but their talk if full of exasperated dislocation. Mark has apparently come home too early. They have a son; after making love, their post-coital talk is full of Antonionian misunderstanding, uncertainty, alienation, cruelty.
These scenes create the mood of the whole film. 'Possession' is shot in English with a French lead by a Polish director. The dialogue has a stilted quality, like a translation from some lost original; this sense of not-quite-rightness extends to the acting, and the scenes themselves, which seem too mannered, too abrupt, too stylised to seem natural. This sense of the drama being at one remove from some original 'reality' is perfect for a film about alienation - people alienated from themselves, each other, their marriage, their home, even their identity.
The horror that constitutes the film obviously has its roots in the female hysteria (one scene in a subway, remembered by Anna, has her miscarry, as she pours out blood and milk, the essence of her femaleness spilling from her; the toilet scene between Heinrich and Mark has a gynaecological terror similar to Argento's 'Suspiria') and male bestiality that cannot be hidden by affluent modernity, but this, on its most basic level, is a harrowing portrait of a failed marriage, horribly truthful to anyone who has even rejoiced in that institution.
All the while we are constantly reminded of the contemporary political reality - Mark's espionage (or is he an assassin?) activities; the wired Berlin wall with its faceless surveillance guards (a divided city, a divided marriage, literally divided people, the whore and the madonna). The film has a lot of talk about faith, chance, God, good and evil, but its true power is recognisably more mundane, yet more unaccountably wrenching than that. One should not overlook the comic sense that flickers through the film, the exaggeration of scenes by prolonging them (the restaurant scene), and the Franju-like waltz-of-death music.