Andrzej Zulawski
Possession

"Possession was a film that could not be made and what I did in that film, even that could not be done. Despite all the awards, all the honors that have been bestowed upon me, never again such trauma, not even in a nightmare..." Isabelle Adjani.

Berlin 1981.

Anna (Isabelle Adjani) and Mark (Sam Neil) are husband and wife and have a 6-year-old child Bob. Mark returns from a business trip and his wife tells him she has another. It's the end. It's not just the end, it's the apocalypse.

Starting from this event, which indeed causes major problems within a family unit to the point of sometimes causing a definitive breakup, Zulawski pushes the consequences to the most extreme. The disintegration of the couple and family is total, along with mental sanity. Zulawski was the pupil of Waida, recognized as one of the greatest Polish directors of all time. Waida’s cinema, like that of his assistant Zulawski, is the so-called nightmare cinema, comparable to Lynch, Cronenberg, and Polanski. But probably it is Possession the most overwhelming, shocking, appalling film, and the list goes on, in the entire cinematography of all the mentioned directors. Lynch claimed that Possession is the most "complete" film of the last 30 years.

Right from the start (the betrayal is confessed in the first minutes of the movie), we immediately enter a frightening scenario, a drama with colors too strong to be real. Zulawski’s objective is probably to convey the message with extraordinary power, and he completely succeeds. It's already a gray, cold, and desolate Berlin, with the wall dividing it, guards and barbed wire, telling us that the two of them are trapped with no escape, and we are with them.

The couple immediately loses the compass entirely, and from then on, the escalation of unhealthy and sadistic madness, anger, jealousy, loss of everything, and the total incapacity to manage such a situation will be unstoppable, unbearable.

Adjani delivers the performance of a lifetime, an exhibition that leaves a mark on both the spectator and herself. A performance that is tormenting, heartbreaking, hallucinated, which could truly undermine the mental sanity of a human being who is only doing their job as an actor in the end. 

The handheld camera follows them, chases them, and encircles them in a delirious waltz, overwhelming, making it impossible for the spectator to remain indifferent. Faced with this film, there are no defenses. If you decide to watch it, you're in there and you feel bad; otherwise, press stop and choose not to proceed. 

After about forty minutes, during which we are already fully inside the drama and it has been abundantly understood that we will not get out, the film introduces a new element and it is in this new element that we can "see" what Anna's possession is. We then enter the realm of horror cinema "he's tired, we made love all night" ...but, I repeat, here everything is metaphorical, it's not a horror at all, in truth this film is not easily classifiable, let's say it's a psycho-drama with "strong" hues.

You will never forget Anna whose madness first insinuates and then explodes like an atomic bomb. 

I would like to describe some scenes, there are memorable ones but I don't want to spoil. Anyway, you will witness chilling scenes, among the most powerful and frightening of all time.

If I have to choose a single adjective, and here I conclude, I would say that Possession is the most disturbing film I have ever seen in my entire life.