102 mins |
Rated
R18 (Drug use, sex scenes & offensive language)
Directed by Andrzej Żuławski
Starring Sam Neill, Isabelle Adjani, Margit Carstensen, Heinz Bennent
Playing as part of Academy's MIND-F*** FILM FESTIVAL June 15th - July 8th.
Set in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, infused with Cold War-era paranoia and tension, POSSESSION is a film that defies classification. One of the most tortured portraits of a disintegrating marriage ever presented on screen, visionary director Andrzej Zulawski masterfully blends horror and thriller conventions into an utterly unique cinema experience drawing on his own traumatic divorce and creative blacklisting in his native Poland.
Spy Mark returns to West Berlin after a mission to find that his wife Anna wants a divorce. She is having an affair but insists that isn't the reason. When Mark hires a private detective to get to the truth, an even more disturbing secret is uncovered.
So begins a descent into a nightmarish maze of jealousy, carnality devoid of satisfaction, insanity, terror and murder where identity and reality are almost impossible to distinguish. Notorious for the demands it placed on its stars, Adjani's searing performance earned her the Best Actress award at Cannes in 1981.
Savagely cut for the US market by bewildered distributors, banned in the UK for almost two decades, Academy will be screening the restored version that showcases POSSESSION as the director intended. It remains every bit as powerful and shocking today as it was on release.
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Playing as part of Academy's MIND-F*** FILM FESTIVAL June 15th - July 8th.
Set in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, infused with Cold War-era paranoia and tension, POSSESSION is a film that defies classification. One of the most tortured portraits of a disintegrating marriage ever presented on screen, visionary director Andrzej Zulawski masterfully blends horror and thriller conventions into an utterly unique cinema experience drawing on his own traumatic divorce and creative blacklisting in his native Poland.
Spy Mark returns to West Berlin after a mission to find that his wife Anna wants a divorce. She is having an affair but insists that isn't the reason. When Mark hires a private detective to get to the truth, an even more disturbing secret is uncovered.
So begins a descent into a nightmarish maze of jealousy, carnality devoid of satisfaction, insanity, terror and murder where identity and reality are almost impossible to distinguish. Notorious for the demands it placed on its stars, Adjani's searing performance earned her the Best Actress award at Cannes in 1981.
Savagely cut for the US market by bewildered distributors, banned in the UK for almost two decades, Academy will be screening the restored version that showcases POSSESSION as the director intended. It remains every bit as powerful and shocking today as it was on release.