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Possession (1981 film)

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Horror film by Andrzej Żuławski

PossessionFrench film poster by Barbara Baranowska<br>Directed byAndrzej ŻuławskiScreenplay byAndrzej Żuławski<br>Adaptation and dialogue by<br>Andrzej Żuławski

Frederic Tuten

Produced byMarie-Laure ReyreStarring<br>Isabelle Adjani

Sam Neill

Heinz Bennent

CinematographyBruno NuyttenEdited by<br>Marie-Sophi Dubus

Suzanne Lang-Willar

Music byAndrzej KorzyńskiProduction<br>companies

Oliane Productions

Marianne Productions

Soma Film Produktion[1]

Distributed byGaumont DistributionRelease dates

25 May 1981 (1981-05-25) (Cannes)

27 May 1981 (1981-05-27) (France)

Running time<br>124 minutesCountries<br>France

West Germany[1]

LanguageEnglishBudget$2.4 million[2]Box office$1.1 million (US only)[3][4]<br>Possession is a 1981 psychological horror drama film directed by Andrzej Żuławski and written by Żuławski and Frederic Tuten. The plot obliquely follows the relationship between an international spy (Sam Neill) and his wife (Isabelle Adjani), who begins exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior after asking for a divorce.

Possession, an international co-production between France and West Germany, was filmed in West Berlin in 1980. Żuławski's only English-language film, it premiered at the 34th Cannes Film Festival, where Adjani won the Best Actress award for her performance. The screenplay was written during the painful divorce of Żuławski from actress Małgorzata Braunek. While not commercially successful either in Europe or in the United States, with the latter only receiving a heavily edited cut on its initial release, the film eventually acquired cult status and has been more positively appraised in later years.

Plot<br>[edit]

Mark is a spy who returns home to West Berlin after a mission to discover that his wife, Anna, is seeing another man and wants to separate. Mark turns over their apartment and custody of their young son, Bob, to Anna. After a long drinking spree, Mark returns to find Bob alone and unkempt. He resolves to be Bob's primary caregiver and unsuccessfully pressures Anna to end her extramarital relationship with a phone call. Anna leaves during the night, allegedly to stay with her friend Margie.

Mark meets Bob's teacher, Helen, who inexplicably looks identical to Anna except for her hair and green eyes. Mark visits and attacks Anna's lover, Heinrich, who beats him down. Mark returns home to find Anna with Bob, and the couple argues, culminating in Mark repeatedly striking Anna; she then leaves.

Mark hires a detective to tail Anna. He later interrogates Anna about their relationship, and she cuts her own neck with an electric knife. Mark treats her wound and cuts his arm with the knife. The detective follows Anna to her derelict apartment and calls to inform Mark of the address. The detective finds a bizarre creature in the bathroom, and Anna kills him. Mark withholds Anna's address from Heinrich. Helen helps Mark care for Bob and reveals that Bob has begun to experience sleep terrors. After putting Bob to bed, Helen and Mark have sex.

Anna kills Zimmermann, the detective's work superior and romantic partner, after he finds the tentacled creature and the detective's body in her apartment. Heinrich leaves Mark a film reel that shows Anna hurting one of her ballet students by holding her in a difficult pose to test her willpower; Anna tells Heinrich that their relationship is similar. Further footage shows Anna describing a conflict between Faith and Chance, as well as the pain that her affair will cause to Mark.

Anna returns and tells Mark that she is caring for her Faith in her apartment after violently miscarrying it in the subway while he was gone. After Anna leaves, Mark reveals her address to Heinrich. Anna shows Heinrich the creature and dismembered corpses before stabbing him. Heinrich flees and calls Mark to arrange a meeting at a bar. Mark discovers the body parts at Anna's apartment, but Anna and the creature are gone. Mark meets Heinrich, kills him in the bar's toilet, and stages it as an accidental death. He sets Anna's apartment on fire and rides home on Heinrich's motorbike. He discovers that Anna has stolen Zimmerman's car and killed Margie, who saw the creature. Mark and Anna have sex. Anna takes the creature to Margie's place. Mark takes Bob to Helen's apartment, then drives to Margie's place, where he witnesses Anna having sex with the creature. Mark visits Heinrich's mother, who kills herself by overdosing on pills.

Mark resists pressure from two former associates to rejoin their mission. He later finds them approaching Margie's place...