“It remains one of the most grueling, powerful, and overwhelmingly intense cinematic experiences that you are likely to have in your lifetime…a cinematic primal scream.” Roger Ebert
A woman starts exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior after asking her husband for a divorce. Suspicions of infidelity soon give way to something much more sinister…Andrzej Żuławski’s controversial Possession had its world premiere at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival. Inspired by his 1976 divorce from actress Małgorzata Braunek, the movie was not a box office success, even being banned in the UK for its supposedly harmful content. In America, it was re-edited in a misguided attempt to make it resemble a straightforward horror movie. However, over time, notoriety turned into an international cult following, with much credit due to the feverish intensity Isabelle Adjani brings to the role of Anna/Helen. Sam Neill plays Mark/Mark’s doppelgänger. Cinematography is by Bruno Nuytten, and the special effects artist was Carlo Rambaldi, who went on to create E.T a year later.
Introduced by Hanna Johansson, a Swedish writer and critic who writes on topics such as art, literature, and queer issues. Her new literary thriller Body Double cleverly exposes the gap between the selves we conceal and the faces we show the world.
Runtime: 127m