Possession (1981) - Restored 35mm Print!
127 min - 1981| Drama Horror
Usually misattributed to the horror
genre, this challenging and highly unusual drama stars Isabelle Adjani
as a young woman who forsakes her husband (Sam Neill) and her lover
(Heinz Bennent) for a bizarre, tentacled creature that she keeps in a
run-down Berlin apartment. In the beginning, her husband knows nothing
about the monster and sincerely believes that his wife is insane. He has
her tailed by private detectives, whom she kills and feeds to the
creature. Still unaware of what has happened, the husband contends with
the reserved and inadvertently seductive presence of his wife's
look-alike (also played by Adjani), a schoolteacher who frequently comes
to tutor his son while his wife is away. Though tempted by her quiet
goodness and beauty, he is still passionately in love with his wife and
even after he finds out about the murders, he stays by her side and
helps her conceal her crimes. Filmed amidst the oppressive backdrop of
the Berlin Wall by the expatriate Polish director Andrzej Zulawski (who
was unable to work in his homeland after too many clashes with the
authorities), the picture is so relentlessly intense and so deliberately
esoteric, that most viewers would find it too hard to connect with.
Still its symbolism, its unbridled and flashy directorial style, and the
tour de force performance by Isabelle Adjani earned this unique
tale a cult following in Europe. The version originally released in the
U.S. had 45 minutes chopped out; in this form, it is barely
comprehensible and looks like a cheap, gory feast. ~ Yuri German, Rovi
Friday 8/17/2012
9:00p
Saturday 8/18/2012
9:00p
Sunday 8/19/2012
9:30p
