Possession (1981)

“Possession remains one of the most grueling, powerful, and overwhelmingly intense cinematic experiences that you are likely to have in your lifetime.” — Peter Sobczynski, RogerEbert.com

SYNOPSIS

PROGRAM NOTE

In 1981, exiled Polish auteur Andrzej Żuławski transformed the wreckage of his own collapsing marriage into one of World Cinema’s most electrifying acts of creative extremity: Possession. At once a psychological horror film, a Cold War nightmare, and an intimately apocalyptic portrait of divorce, the movie resists any single, stable interpretation. What begins as a warped, Bergman-esque study of marital disintegration (laced with spy-thriller intrigue) quickly mutates into a delirious phantasmagoria of doubles, religious imagery, and cosmic dread, where personal crisis and political anxiety bleed into one another. 

Rather than approaching its themes of love, jealousy, and the terrifying unknowability of another person with restraint, Żuławski embraces emotional excess as a form of truth. His cinema lunges, convulses, and screams – and the results are unforgettable. Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani give themselves over completely, with Adjani delivering a legendary, all-time great performance that won her the Best Actress prize at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival and must be seen to be believed. Famously dismissed by master filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky as “unspeakably revolting,” Possession has only grown in stature as a singular, exhilarating masterpiece. We’re proud to present it in a stunning 4K restoration from Metrograph Pictures. Some films lure audiences into their rhythms; this one seizes you, shakes you, and refuses to let go.