Product Details

• Actors: Isabelle Adjani, Sam Neill, Margit Carstensen, Heinz Bennent, Johanna Hofer
• Directors: Andrzej Zulawski
• Format: Color, Letterboxed, Original recording remastered, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
• VHS Release Date: May 9, 2000
• Run Time: 123 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0764009745
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #40,289 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #62 in

  Video > Horror > Widescreen

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Mark (Sam Neill) comes home from months on the road to find his flighty wife, Anna (Isabelle Adjani in an almost bug-eyed performance), ready to divorce him. Distraught and angry, he tracks down her lover, but discovers a secret unknown to either of the men. Anna has given birth, literally, to a demon lover (created by monster maker Carlos Rimbaldi), and she'll murder anyone who dares to come between them. Full of anger, jealousy, emotional suffering, and vindictiveness, this bizarre, bleak horror film is a mix of Hollywood melodrama, European psychodrama, and the raw, blunt emotions of personal art cinema. Mark and Anna grow increasingly shrill and erratic as they sink deeper into madness and obsession, and finally doppelgängers, also played by Neill and Adjani, arise to take their place. Hints of Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, and the biological horrors of David Cronenberg float through the story. The English-language French production was shot in Germany with a Polish director and an international cast, which only adds to the dissonance. Andrzej Zulawski (who claims that the film was inspired by his own divorce) directs this obscure and often alienating film with unrelenting intensity. The 2-hour film was cut down to 80 minutes for its original American release, and has only now been restored to full length. The DVD features commentary by Zulawski in conversation with his biographer, Dan Bird. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A distorted look into the mirror of love-- a must!, June 26, 2000

By	Miguel Cane "Writer, Journalist, Film Critic" (Mexico City, Mexico) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Possession (DVD)

After many years of acquiring a cult status of mythical proportions, Zulawski's "Possession" finally comes to the viewers as it was originally supposed to be seen.

This is not an easy movie to see or to understand -- and I suppose it neither was easy to write or film. The characters are severely neurotic and seem to thrive on their bizarre behaviour (in more ways than one) yet they are somehow all too human. Like the movie ultimately suggests (once you get to see the secret trick the movie plays on the two leads), this story may be like looking into a mirror, though dark and distorted.

Meet Mark (Sam Neill), an overworked man with a mysterious job that takes him "to far away places". Meet his lovely wife, Anna (an overwhelmingly beautiful Isabelle Adjani), a sexually frustrated housewife and former ballet instructor who has much more than meets the eye going on for her.

Between quarrels and reconciliations, these two share a nice apartment in a quiet and well-to-do district of Berlin and have a five year old son, Bob, but they also share a horror that no one could have suspected, and that will make all their fantasies and nightmares come true.

After being brutally butchered by Vestron Video for its original release, "Possession" has been restored to its original lenght and sequence, therefore becoming coherent for the viewers who used to find it mind-numbingly strange.

I think of it as a very unique piece of craftmanship, part Ingmar Bergman drama, part Polanski suspense thriller, part Dario Argento gore, part Kubrick satire, part Buñuel surrealism and still somehow, very much its own.

The camera angles, the direction, the strange whims and seizures that seem to take over the characters (including one memorable and disturbing scene on a subway station with Adjani pulling all the stops not ontly to her acting abilities but to her physical strength too) are part of a very strange style Zulawski has to tell his story.

If you are accustomed to standard horror fare, then probably you will dismiss this movie as pretentious eurotrash (something it has been labeled off as countless times) but if you're game and follow the sequences and let your imagination be ensnared this will be a convulsive ride to the depths of emotion where you won't emerge as the same person.

And quite possibly, that's what all horror movies are really about at heart.

As a footnote: Isabelle Adjani won a very deserved Gold Palm at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival for her dual role in this film that, no matter how much you loved it or hated it, is still unforgettable.

The quality of the DVD in picture and sound is also of note.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing like it in the whole world..., April 25, 2000

By	B. G. Shultz "pyfr" (Rockwall, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This movie is absolutely the strangest, most disturbing thing ever made with a camera. It is the story of a man and woman who are having marital problems. She has been cheating on him, at first with a human, then with a thing that is definitely not a human (at first anyway). Her second lover turns out to be some kind of tentacled thing that likes to make a little love and eat a little flesh. Once the husband finds out about this, it's all downhill from there. "Possession" is a very surreal, deeply symbolic movie that will simultaneously creep you out, play with your head, make you want to vomit, and kickstart your imagination. It's set in Berlin, which gives it a somber, eerie feel to begin with. Sam Neill and Isabel Adjani both deliver stunning performances (especially in the infamous subway scene, which you'll never ever forget). The ending is very unsettling and completely unclear, yet it somehow works. Be patient with this movie and it will teach you a thing or two about the nature of guilt and what repressed emotions can do to a person's soul. A very powerful movie that should never be viewed in its edited version. Thank you, Anchor Bay, for re-releasing this jewel in its entirety.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There's Much More Going One Here Than You Think, April 21, 2005

By	Sambson (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Possession (DVD)

Yeah, Possession. The First time I saw this film I was catatonic by the end. Three friends and I talked about it so much we got 4 new friends to watch it with us again. We continued marveling over it and watched it yet again on the third night (ten people this time). Why? Because this isn't really a horror film. Yeah, there's a "monster", but only in America would this get relegated to the "Horror" genre. Because here, we usually make films to fit in a box, follow a formula or entertain; whereas this one seems to be about catharsis for the director.

Several years ago there was an amazing fan site to this man's work (which doesn't seem to exist anymore) that went into infinite detail about his films and personal life. Suffice to say, there's much more going on here than you think.

During 1970's and 80's Poland, all films were approved by the Polish film commission and Zulawski's second film "Diabel" (1975) was banned. Made in Polish, it was essentially cut off from it's only possible audience. He took a trip to France, made his 3rd film and returned to his homeland to do the 4th. After two years work the authorities would not allow him to finish it. Since then he has lived and created successfully in France.

"Possession" is the first film he made immediately following the second incident in Poland; just as his marriage was dissolving, and is better described as 3 films in 1. The first part is a drama centered around a couple who's marriage is falling apart. As the discord escalates, it becomes a horror film with some scenes potentially taking place only in the psyche of the wife. The finale is an action film that drives the frenzied pace even higher through chase sequences.

Other confusions seem to stem from many lines of dialog (especially in exchanges between Hans and Sam Neil) that may be interpreted as critique of Zulawski's treatment by the government of Poland. Consequently some exchanges leave viewers perplexed, as characters words don't appear to have any bearing on the scene at hand. The mysterious "agents" that pop up from time to time, simply create the social context the director must've felt as a persecuted artist. And as for the doppelgangers... I like to think they are the plastic versions of each character that the government or society's values would have them become.

In many ways this film is an examination of the internal landscape of Zulawski at that moment; divorced from his wife and exiled by his beloved homeland. The high drama of these characters has the actors screamingly portraying every pent-up emotion Zulawski felt about his marriage, and wasn't allowed to say to his fellow countrymen about their homeland. I love this film. I love every gut wrenching, hysterical, chaotic minute of it. Viva Zulawski.