{"id":15362,"date":"2013-07-12T14:55:18","date_gmt":"2013-07-12T13:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=15362"},"modified":"2013-07-12T15:22:29","modified_gmt":"2013-07-12T14:22:29","slug":"blu-ray-possession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2013\/07\/12\/blu-ray-possession\/","title":{"rendered":"Blu-ray: Possession"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Possession.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15363\" alt=\"Possession\" src=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Possession.jpg\" width=\"560\" height=\"280\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Andrzej_%C5%BBu%C5%82awski\">Andrzej Zulawski<\/a>&#8216;s intense 1981 psychodrama is still a puzzling and disturbing work.<\/p>\n<p>Set in a bleak, sparsely populated <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Berlin\">Berlin<\/a>, it depicts the gradual meltdown of a married couple: Mark (Sam Neill) and Anna (Isabelle Adjani), the latter of whom wants a divorce.<\/p>\n<p>But words only tell part of the story with Possession, as it combines many different elements including horror, politics and psychological breakdown into a unique mix.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine if David Cronenberg, Lars Von Trier and David Lynch teamed up for a remake of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Who%27s_Afraid_of_Virginia_Woolf%3F_(film)\">Who&#8217;s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?<\/a> and you get an inkling of the kind of territory Zulawski is exploring.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VNsXgJ4d6b0\" height=\"315\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The director may have been exorcising his own personal and professional demons: he was going through a messy divorce and his two previous films saw him effectively blacklisted as a filmmaker in his native Poland.<\/p>\n<p>This may indeed have contributed to the extreme acts we see on-screen: characters scream at each other, seem to hallucinate and engage in strange acts of violent and sexual behaviour.<\/p>\n<p>Adjani is given the most difficult role &#8211; having to portray a convincingly hysterical woman for most of the film.<\/p>\n<p>Although at times it threatens to descend into comedy, she manages to make a strong impression with one unsettling sequence inside a subway the highlight.<\/p>\n<p>Sam Neill provides a good foil for her, even if some of the scenes suffer because of the limited technical resources such as the post-synced audio. (The film was a French-German co-production).<\/p>\n<p>Cinematographer <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0005814\/\">Bruno Nuytten<\/a>&#8216;s use of wide-angle lenses and Zulawski&#8217;s direction make good use of interior space (the film is mostly set inside), whilst Andrzej Korzynski&#8217;s electronic score complements the action well.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3ONak1CTcUU\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Possession is a hard film to figure out, both on a plot level and a genre level. It contains elements of horror (a creature designed by <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Carlo_Rambaldi\">Carlo Rimbaldi<\/a>) but also seems to be expressing a link between personal and social breakdown.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Berlin_Wall\">Berlin Wall<\/a> features prominently in the background (at one point the camera zooms back from a watch tower) and one wonders if Zuwalski was expressing a connection between Cold War divisions and the inner torment of a married couple.<\/p>\n<p>It is an ambiguous film and this approach has seen it acclaimed at Cannes, where Adjani won Best Actress, and banned in the UK as a &#8216;Video Nasty&#8217;, almost certainly making it unique in achieving these two feats.<\/p>\n<p>Second Sight have done a fine job on the Region 2 UK Blu-ray, with a wealth of extras included.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>BONUS FEATURES<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">The Other Side of the Wall &#8211; The Making of Possession<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">Audio Commentary with co-writer Frederic Tuten and Daniel Bird<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">Repossessed &#8211; A short feature showing the film\u2019s UK and US reception, the \u2018video nasties\u2019 furore&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">and the US recut<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">A Divided City &#8211; The Berlin locations<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">The Sounds of Possession &#8211; An exclusive interview with composer Andrzej Korzynski about his working relationship with Andrzej Zulawski<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">Our Friend in the West &#8211; An exclusive interview with legendary producer Christian Ferry<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">Basha &#8211; A new featurette on Polish artist Barbara \u2018Basha\u2019 Baranowska, who created the famed poster for Possession.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">Theatrical Trailer<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">Andrzej Zulawski Interview<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong>Possession<\/strong> is released in the UK on July 29th by Second Sight<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/12oTgdy\">Buy Possession from Amazon UK<\/a><br \/>\n&gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0082933\/\">Possession at the&nbsp;IMDb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andrzej Zuwalski&#8217;s intense 1981 psychodrama is still a puzzling and disturbing work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2588,2589,2586,1305],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15362"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}