Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Possession (1981)

Gaumont (France)
Directed by Andrzej Zulawski
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Anchor Bay)
(Turner Classic Movies)

Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani go through one of the worst breakups in screen history. Neill suspects his wife of having an affair with an older man, which he does not deny when confronted. However, Adjani has a surprise for both of them: a private detective hired to follow her finds not another man, but an octopus-like creature in her dingy Berlin apartment. Adjani kills the detective and stores his body parts in the refrigerator. The monster is not only her lover, but a crude clone of Neill which is still growing. If you can accept all of that, then there is the over-the-top acting histrionics to deal with, nearly every scene ends up with some kind of screaming, hallucinating or other emotional outburst. Adjani's meltdown in the subway would be great set to throbbing techno music, as it resembles more of a free-form dance than acting. Incredibly, she won numerous major acting awards for the performance, including Cannes.

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