Possession

1981 Directed by Andrzej Żuławski

Paranoia and conspiracy attaches itself to the mind in during The Cold War. Mark is a spy coming in and out of West Berlin tasked with an unknowable investigation of a mole with pink socks within the secret organization. He comes home to find that his wife Anna has become estranged from all of his travel. The film showcases coldness of the environment they live in- the grey tone of West Berlin takes on an oppressive quality of harsh stone brutalist architecture.

The anxiety around his divorce continues to make reality slip. Anna seems to have left his son alone- and yet he finds a woman who seems so much like her at his son's school. She seems oblivious to the goings on- and yet this odd twin seems to be more in touch with the son than his wife. Mark's abuse spins Anna into a frenzy of weird circumstance- bloodletting and wild frenzied shocks carry the narrative into increasingly odd directions. Anna becomes crazed with twisted epileptic dance verging on the surreal- a performance of total eruption.

Anna's lover also seems to be otherworldly-fighting Mark and throwing him like a rag doll when he's confronted. This machismo fighting over Anna is at odds with where her concerns are-- hiding her own monster in the closet. A festering slippery erotic body horror that seems to hide its true final form. This captivating energy crushes the rest of the film to a harrowing final shot.

This thematic disembowelment reflects the very nature of the split world during the Cold War. A world of traumatic divorce from reality- drifting between different film genres of thriller and dramatic to horrific. From authentic to inauthentic versions that never seem to get back to where things were before the traumatic event.

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This the final film before the 2023's horror marathon. All of the films exhibit a grand conspiratorial or psychological anxiety that covers much of our modern way of life~