Cinema: Possession - Sohom Chakrabarty

cinema| |
Film: Possession (1981)

Language: English

Director: Andrzej Zulawski

- Sohom Chakrabarty

 

Sometimes it is difficult to describe an experience. Because there may be no reference points or analogy that you can draw in to help your readers understand what you have just seen, felt or may be even imbibed into your soul. It is deep, engulfing and unsettling to begin with, but an experience unlike anything ever before. Such is Andrzej Zulawski’s ‘Possession’.

First thing first, you will be completely blown away by this movie. Be it because of the strangeness of the plot, because of the complete originality of the script, which keeps you sitting with a clenched fist awaiting the next scene to reveal itself, or be it because of the superior technicality that you might notice in the making of the film. Every department, from cinematography, music, acting to even make-up and art, were completely attuned to the director’s vision. Not only is this a phenomenal thing to achieve, but it has also led to some fine camera work and music that will stun every lover of the craft out there. If you think you have watched every impressive film that is there to be seen, you might consider watching this.

It is not likely of me to raise the expectation level of my readers so high at the very beginning of the review, even without telling anything on the plot. Frankly, I don’t know what to write about it. Yes, after watching it another time before I started to write this up, I decided to give up on trying articulating the plot that is out there. And this is not just me, I have not found a single review in the world wide web which tries to knit the story up and gather up some sense out of it. Every article will only give you fragments of the movie, the scenes which are the most striking ones, the class reached in departments of filmmaking in this movie and almost everything that will only raise your curiosity level up another notch. And whatever detail they provide for the sake of providing some, does not, and I repeat, does not make up the story. There’s many things going on, many ideas carefully strewn underneath the fabric of the scenes that the viewer needs to explore themselves. But whatever it is, it’s sure to ‘possess’ you for the two hours of film watching that you are up for. The genre undoubtedly is horror, but there are a lot of elements of drama and surrealism blended in it. Hence it is not the typical horror flick that you watch at late night hour in English movie channels, with ghosts, zombies and freaked out blood-bathed human beings running around in frenzy. They don’t scare but little children, and if you are a true horror fan, you must have seen the likes of The Shining and Rosemary’s Baby to know what horror is. This film can be easily put in the same group as these two. The horror is uncanny, unknown and unexpected. And then when you know it, it puts an everlasting impression in your soul.

Most reviews will only tell you about a couple undergoing separation after the husband comes back home from some ‘war duty’ which seems like some ‘spy work’. What follows are a string of scenes where the characters sit at the edge of sanity and the viewer rides on the hysterical outbursts of both the husband and the wife. At all times, the wife seems completely possessed by something which makes her loathe her husband as well as strangely coming back to the apartment time and again, just to have another bout of hysteria. The reviews will tell you about the monster, which is one of the major achievements of the story I would say, and a well-guarded secret that was only revealed in the most opportune moment, and in such effectiveness that it is bound to make you feel something crawling inside your bones. The use of a monster in most films is done to bring out inhumanly gore and senseless atrocities which never makes them believable. But this movie makes you believe in the presence of the monster and makes you feel the need to know what it is. And may be you are provided with an answer, if you are looking closely. But then, are you ready to take that answer? May be not.

What the reviews will not tell you are the many references to dogs dying under the porch, the man with pink socks who is shown at the end as well, the men spying on the main character Mark (the husband, who himself was a spy) and such seemingly unnecessary information scattered in the movie. But are they unnecessary? I don’t know. But I believe, and I am quite sure you will also agree with me on this, that a movie so well made will not have extra baggage in it. They surely tell something, only we may not be able to listen to what it wants to say.

But the real story, and the real horror, lies somewhere else. If you watch the movie, do pay attention from the scene where Anna (the wife) tries to tell Mark about the twin sisters of faith and chance. The scene which follows is a conversation of Anna with God with only muffled screaming sounds. And then the most iconic scene of this film – the subway possession scene. Even if I write it in all details, it will not fail to capture you in its moments. So I won’t attempt to describe it and let you watch it. May be with these scenes you will get to know what possessed Anna or what the monster is. It worked this way for me at least. May be the film works differently for you. I cannot be sure that it gives the same meaning to all the people watching it.

This movie was made by the director when he was going through a bad divorce. The film is an out and out director’s film, starting from conceptualization to execution. And that is evident when you watch the film. There is absolutely no attempt from the director’s side to try to explain what is going on. The viewers are thrown into the vast open sea, which is the film, and each scene is like waves crashing on them. And you struggle to swim afloat throughout the experience of watching this film. When you know that this is a personal film of the director and the situation he has been through when making this movie, some of the scenes, symbols and dialogues of the protagonists bring a different sense to you. But let me caution you, this is not all that is there to the film. The film may have started as a personal expression of Zulawski, but it had gone far beyond and slowly achieving the cult status. The excellence reached in the storytelling, camerawork, sound and art design is surely a lesson for students of filmmaking and lovers of the craft.

| |