Possession is a wicked film directed by Andrzej Zulawski and starring Isabelle Adjani, Sam Neill, Heinz Bennent and Margit Carstensen.
It includes horrific sequences and disturbing images but it´s not just a basic horror movie, it´s an allegory for divorce. The director has stated that he wrote the screenplay in the midst of a messy divorce.
The cast is fantastic! Especially Adjani, she´s really frightening. Adjani told a French magazine that it took her several years to get over playing Anna. She also said that she'd never take on a similar role.
West Germany during the cold war, a creature created by Carlo Rambaldi (Alien etc.) and a brooding atmosphere throughout the film.
It´s very hard to watch but it´s a movie you´ll never forget.
Check out the trailer and get the film if you want to experience something different.
Anyone else seen this masterpiece?
Possession trailer Posted by Johnny Roarke is reckless (Member # 9826) on :
Oh yes, i've seen it !
It's been a while though, but i absolutely love it ! I think it was described somewhere as "a thinking man's horror movie" (whatever that might be).
Unsettling to the max.
It was released by Anchor Bay in 2000 when they were king of the dvd-labels. The disc has an audio commentary by Andrzej Zulawski as a bonus. I believe this is another one of the old Anchor Bay discs that sells for insane amounts of money nowadays.
I have another Zulawski movie from the 80's : La Femme Publique (1984). It has Valerie Kaprisky (Richard Gere's stunningly beautiful female co-star in Breathless '83) walking around very naked for most of the running-time.
I think i should do a review for that one some time soon.
[ 30. January 2013, 07:05: Message edited by: Johnny Roarke is reckless ]
Posted by aTomiK (Member # 6575) on :
I have Possession on Swedish Studio-S dvd. It includes only minor extras like trivia etc.
Ha, i own La Femme Publique and another Kaprisky film L'année des méduses (1984) on VHS I need to check them out!
I love Breathless!
Posted by Helen_S (Member # 5804) on :
A great flick! You can definitely see how 'inspired' by it Lars Von Trier was for his rubbish Antichrist.
Posted by aTomiK (Member # 6575) on :
Possession probably also on blu-ray in 2013.
Posted by Johnny Roarke is reckless (Member # 9826) on :
I would be interested in getting it on blu-ray as well, for sure !
Liner notes included with the old Anchor Bay release say Possession got chopped down to a running time of approx. 80 minutes for its initial US video release through Vestron. To make things even worse, what remained got re-arranged, scenes were moved into a different order, cheap visual effects were added, and it got re-scored with something in the line of Omen-like chanting.
Not surprisingly it got some negative reviews.
The Anchor Bay version is the director's cut which has a running time of approx. 123 minutes.
Posted by aTomiK (Member # 6575) on :
Yeah, they totally ruined it in the US back in the day and it was one of the Video Nasties in the UK (released uncut on VHS in 1999). I think that they didn´t even try to bring it here
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