Possession

This unhinged, controversial, allegorical psycho-horror was not a commercial success upon its initial release and it’s easy to see why, thanks to its graphic depicting of a couple’s gradual descent into madness, following the breakdown of their marriage. Despite strong and intense performances from its two leads, Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani (who won a ‘Best Actress’ award at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival), POSSESSION is probably not the best choice for a film to be watched over the festive season. Then again…

Set in West-Berlin eight years before the fall of the Wall, the bleak surroundings correspond with the initial state of Mark (Sam Neill) and Anna’s (Isabelle Adjani) marriage. When Mark, a spy who just returned home after yet another mission, arrives back home, he doesn’t get the welcome he had hoped for. Far from it, his wife - sexually frustrated and neglected due to Mark’s long absences as part of his job - makes it known to him that she wants a divorce. Oh, and she does have a new lover by the name of Heinrich (Heinz Bennent delivering an embarrassingly bad performance). Then, there’s the question of who will take custody of their son Bob (Michael Hogben). Mark agrees that Anna should have custody as well as their joint apartment, but don’t be fooled into thinking that just because the couple had come to an arrangement/compromise, that’s the end of it.

Far from it, the true horror of Mark and Anna’s marriage is soon to rear its ugly head when it becomes clear that Mark has no intention of leaving her nor giving her up, whereas she makes it crystal clear that she has no intentions of breaking up with Heinrich. Soon, the domestic situation turns from nasty to unhinged, with intense fights and Anna acting ever more unhinged, even going as far as attempting to cut her throat with an electric knife and Mark following suit when he attempts the same, albeit by cutting his left arm. Mark decides to visit Heinrich, demanding he give up Anna, which of course he is not prepared to do. Suffice to say, this first encounter between Mark and Heinrich is of a highly volatile nature with worse to follow…

Meanwhile, Anna moves out of her apartment to stay with her best friend Margie (Margit Carstensen) while Mark meets Bob’s teacher Helen (also played by Adjani), who bears a striking resemblance to Anna with the difference of different coloured eyes (green instead of blue) and a slightly different hairstyle. Anna then takes a ramshackle apartment of her own and Mark hires a private eye to find out where she now lives, with the intent of not disclosing her new address to Heinrich. Detektiv Zimmerman (Shaun Lawton) does find out where Anna lives alright, but he discovers something else in her apartment: a hideously deformed, tentacled creature… a physical manifestation of Anna’s increasing psychosis! It is a discovery which Zimmerman does not survive. Likewise, Mark also descends into madness combined with violence and eventually kills Heinrich, but more unpleasantness (an understatement if ever there was one) is to follow, when he discovers that the tentacled creature morphs into another, green-eyed version of Mark… leading to one of cinema’s most shocking climaxes.

The notorious scene of Anna miscarrying in the subway, as well as her having sex with the tentacled creature and also the sequence with Mark going on a deadly rampage through town all contributed to the film originally branded a ‘video nasty’ and banned in several countries, including the UK. Of course, by nowadays standards and diminished sensitivities, one might argue that there are worse flicks out there although given the context of a marriage breakdown, other films like ‘War of the Roses’ from 1989, feel like a Disney fun-ride in comparison.

POSSESSION has just been released in Limited Edition 4K UHD/Blu-ray format as well as in standard 4K UHD & Blu-ray with an array of informative Bonus features, while the Limited Edition release is presented in a rigid slipcase, complete with hardback book, six collector’s art cards, original shooting script (211-pages) and original artwork by Basha Baranowska.