The Ethereal Violence of Commitment and Desire

**A Retrospect on Possession (1981)**

By Athena Hueber

As a warning, if you are interested in falling down Possession’s (1981) rabbit hole, I would recommend that you take the plunge more than once. At least I did to truly understand and explore its depths which may leave you with multiple interpretations. It is a journey that will leave you short of breath, strapped to a chair with a mirror in front of you, demanding you face your most darkest fears. Andrzej Żuławski is the conductor that keeps his audience focused on the orchestra of horror that lies beneath modern relationships. What causes most marriages to fail because people refuse to look beyond the veil of the honeymoon stage, expecting something else entirely.

In his earlier work in Polish, Żuławski wrote and directed The Devil (1972) which was banned by the country’s government. In 1793 during the Prussian invasion of Poland, a nobleman is saved by a “stranger” who demands the names of the country’s challengers. The two begin to commit murders across the land. Slant Magazine’s Jeremiah Kipp wrote an article on the film, "Society for Żuławski is just a thin veneer used to disguise the horrible sadism and unhappiness lurking inside every human heart. The Devil would make for maudlin, depressing viewing if every scene didn’t feel like explosions were being set off, sending the inmates of a madhouse free into the streets outside." Possession holds similar dark undertones.

Due to its limited release (Germany did not have distribution of the film until 2009), I had to find the edited copy (30 minutes) of it that someone had ripped from an Australian VHS EMI and put on Vimeo. It’s not the original edition, which I may watch at another time. Listening to the echo of the audio gives an atmosphere to the film that I rather enjoyed as the film began. Possession starts with Mark (Sam Neill) returning home from a trip and it is confirmed in a meeting with his superiors that he is a spy. This is not revisited again, which I didn’t find to be necessary but an attempt at building character as if the story had a different intended purpose. His wife, Anna is a child ballet instructor and her state of mind is made evidently clear when she demands one of her students shift to an uncomfortable position, reducing her to tears. When Anna and Mark reconcile, with what seems to be the only comfort they find in each other is their young son, Bob, Anna states she wants a divorce but won’t say why. Later, Mark has trouble performing and becomes insecure, asking if she’s been with anyone else. The two come to the conclusion that “these things happen with married couples.”

This is where the beginning of the descent into the void of toxic emotions begins for both of them. Mark wakes up on the floor after a shot of Anna grunting at a statue of Jesus in a church to a voice telling him that he “can’t bring her home.” Mark begins to panic, looking through bookcases and watching a projector show a man filming Anna’s ballet class. Cutting to Mark sitting at their kitchen table, he finds a Taj Mahal postcard with the writing, “I’ve seen half of God’s face here. The other half is you.” It is signed by “Heinrich,” the other lover to Mark’s dismay. He calls up a friend of Anna’s, Margie, begging her to provide him with information on this mysterious figure but she refuses, saying Anna is entitled to her own secrets. After he disconnects the line, he quickly receives a call from Anna and the two agree to meet at a cafe.

One of my favorite lines from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) states, “Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired, women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.” There are expectations that are assumed in marriage that result in a relationship doomed to fail as well as a combination of how each other person was raised. Arguably, Mark has an idea of Anna that she was to be “his” and with a lover, separate from him, it has thrown him out of his comfort to chaos. He yells at her that he does not expect it to last and he wishes not to be involved with their son’s life at all due to her transgressions. Shocked but not wanting to be part of the “Who is the worst person?” game that happens in fear-based, emotional manipulations, Anna says, “No one is good or bad, but if you want, I can be the bad one so I could have never had Bob with you!” This sends Mark over the edge who attempts to attack Anna in the cafe who defended by a few of the waiters and even some cooks.

Another flash forward to three weeks later shows Mark, unshaven, thrashing about on a bed in a hospital room suggesting he may have been going through some substance abuse issues. It seems when there is a movement in time, the couple becomes progressively worse. Mark returns home, properly put together, where he finds his son alone sitting in chaotic disarray who states his mother left “but never came back.” When Anna returns to their apartment, Mark states he is not leaving and she has to “restore order” by leaving her lover. The madness that comes with trying to understand when a person begins to fall out of love is palpable. When there is this type of impasse, something small can set off results in an explosive manner. Especially when two people know each other so well that they use their weaknesses as weapons. When Anna begins to cry as she’s pressured to leave her lover or have her son taken away, Mark attempts to corner her, stating, “I can’t stand to see you like this.”

In the morning, Anna leaves and begins to scream in a subway tunnel. After some brief shots of a statue of Jesus, she falls to her knees, spitting out vomit and proceeds to have a violent miscarriage. This entire scene seems to be the most tangible piece of the entire film. Their intoxicating hatred of each other fuels this destruction of a sacred life. Later, she tells him of the event that she “miscarried Sister Faith, and what left was Sister Chance." Mark goes through his own personal hell of reaching out again to Anna’s friend, Margie and receives a call from Heinrich who says that she’s with him. When he’s able to pinpoint where Heinrich lives, he storms over to his apartment where the man states he has not seen her in the past few weeks. Mark returns home to a joyful Anna and demands her whereabouts. The incomprehensible pattern of the understanding of his wife is clearly displayed when he accuses her of lying, causing her to state that she would not lie to someone she did not want to be around. The “tea kettle” of their household begins to crack when she slaps him across the face. When he demands she slap him again, she refuses with a smile on her face. To Mark, another provocation where he hits her repeatedly. When she flees their apartment, he ultimately follows her asking what will “become” of them as she holds a handkerchief to her bleeding face and she cries for him not to follow her.

This pattern of violence and longing is synonymous with the apprehension in abandonment. That we will be forgotten or the actions we had with past lovers with no longer leave an impact. Anna’s desire with Heinrich causes Mark to feel like there was no meaning in what the two of them had made for each other, without examining his own fallacies that brought him to the point they are now. With Anna, her desire to be free of the pain Mark is drowned by the toxic nature of complacency that comfortability can hold when it’s something you’re used to versus the fear of the unknown. Mark goes down this path to the point of hiring a private investigator to watch Anna. Looking into the deeper meaning is when he brings his son to school and he meets his teacher, Helen who looks exactly like Anna. This choice in having the same actress play her is intentional. Yoobin Park and Geoff MacDonald of the University of Toronto published an article in 2019 called, “Consistency between individuals' past and current romantic partners' own reports of their personalities.” In states in psychology, we tend to have a preference over those with similar features as to what we are comfortable with. Mark seems to be curious over Helen due to her kind and friendly nature where Anna is more stern and chaotic. Even Anna’s lover Heinrich looks eerily similar to Mark. When Helen comes over to discuss Bob’s school work and help take care of him, Mark makes a comment that with Anna gone, he’s been at a “war against women.” Helen turns to him, polishing a knife from cleaning dishes and states that the only thing women have in common is menstruation.

For Anna, the climax of her repressed desires comes to a head. Mark’s private investigator follows her to her separate apartment where he discovers a creature gestating in her bedroom. I call it the “creature” as its mass of flesh and pulsating blood gives little credence to any other noun. Behind him, Heinrich hears Anna say, “He made love to me all night.” The investigator is hit over the head with a bottle by her and shot to death before he can even fathom what he has stumbled upon. Are you still following? At this point, I was incredibly dizzy. Taking a look at Żuławski’s history, shot-by-shot, analyzed to the bone from its cinematography is not meant to be looked at in an analytical way but more by the artistic “phases” in his films. Basically, it’s not always supposed to make sense but more in a dreamy narrative. The feeling post-orgasm where you feel like you’re drunk, floating on a ship with not a care in the world but wanting to die drinking all that you can from what you spent decades keeping dry from. Żuławski can stand in front of you and ask, “Does the abyss stare back at you?”

From years of Mark (even men in general) demanding the world of her, Anna has reached her entire breaking point illustrated through the creature that has been born out of her miscarriage, the collapse of her marriage, and of her shame that he brought out in her. When Heinrich discovers her second apartment, he becomes aggressive demanding that she “not resist” because he’s stronger than her when he begins to aggressively touch her all over her body. When he begins to disrobe after she agrees to “make love,” Heinrich discovers the creature who contorts into a humanoid shape and he becomes paralyzed, not being able to fathom what he sees before him. But she is unphased, pulling out a knife, stabs him, and states he’s “no different than anyone” but a different version. Heinrich flees and Anna begins to undress in front of the creature.

Mark is finally introduced to the creature when he receives a call from Heinrich. He comes to Anna’s apartment which is covered in filth, and discovered the corpses of men. Anna’s ill-fated lover comes to Mark, stating he is scared of the creature. Instead of agreeing with him and working together, Heinrich is attacked by Mark’s insecurity who hits him over the head with the cover to the toilet, killing him instantly. Quickly, he rigs up the apartment to Anna’s oven and sets fire to the home. Now she has nowhere to go and appears to him, asking to be together. That night, they sleep together and everything appears just as Mark wanted. Or so he thinks.

Later, Anna goes missing and Mark calls over Helen to watch Bob while he goes looking for her. He’s brought to the same apartment again where he discovers that the creature has taken on his likeness but is tainted in a demonic state with a scorpion-like tail, having passionate sex with Anna. This is the moment where Mark is confronted by the epitome of everything that he cannot be and the fact that he so desperately tried to run away from. This creature who Anna killed men over and left her family for. For Anna, it is her desire to have domination over her life that transformed into this hideous abomination. The creature which bares his resemblance who will always have a suffocating prevalence to her. It’s almost mocking him. This often occurs with couples who are so codependent on each other that the idea of separate paths can cause them insanity. In Mark’s case, it is the sheer realization that he will never be enough for her. The two lock eyes as she says, “Almost...almost...almost,” as the creature continues to ravish her.

Possession is a gem in the rough of Lovecraftian-esque cinema. In the original, unedited version, Anna shapes the creature for her own devices setting off a chain of events. It murders Margie and news of Heinrich’s death causes his mother to commit suicide. Mark and Anna are gunned down in a storm of bullets from police after he attempts to kill the creature. In all honesty, I think the edited version was the better artistic choice in terms of how the filmed flowed together. But the demise of Anna and Mark shows how catastrophic their relationship truly was, despite what it has transformed into. When we allow our repressions to be metaphorized into such violence, what else will we kill as a result?

Athena has been a Die-Hard Horror Film Buff sincer her Dad had he watch “Night of the Living Dead”. She loves the grotesque, Monsters and more that symbolize the creatures we often see inside ourselves.

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