Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon, my Darlings.   For today’s post, I will be reviewing and analyzing, as well as unpacking the sexuality and the taboos present in the horror film Possession from 1981!   So, like most of my film reviews, I will be discussing the whole film and plot points, so spoilers will abound.   However, for Possession, it is going to be a bit different, as this film is like a fever dream, so I will need to do more analysis during the plot breakdown.

You may wonder what exactly this film is.   Is it a Creature Feature?   Yes, the film even credits creature design in the opening credits.   Is it a relationship film?  Yes, the film tells the story of a couple going through the end of their relationship when the wife asks for a divorce.   Is it a Doppelganger film?  Yes, Isabelle Adjani pulls double duty.   Is it a film about Sexuality, Repression, and Liberation?  Of course it is!

Now, that is a lot to say about a film without really saying much at all.   The film opens when Mark, played by Sam Neill, returns home from yet another work trip to learn that his wife, Anna, played by Isabelle Adjani, wants a divorce.   He goes on to become obsessed with finding out why she wants to divorce him.   He quickly learns that she has been having an affair with a man named Heinrich, who has even spent time with their son, Bob.   However, he knows that there is something else going on beneath the surface, as Anna continues to disappear time and time again!

Mark begins to take over the duty of dropping Bob off at school, learning that Bob’s teacher, named Helen, is a true Doppelgänger of his wife.   That is what I mean when I say that Adjani pulls double duty, as she plays both roles (but wears a wig for her role as Helen).   Mark also meets with Heinrich to try to find Anna, but to no avail.  This leads to Mark hiring a private detective to find Anna.   Mark, it should also be noted, has just left a job that is heavily implied to be one in espionage.   He stopped working this job because he chose to prioritize his family.   

While all of this is going on, Anna is in and out of their home and their son’s life, and Mark is having some seeming breaks with reality himself.   That is where a lot of the fever dream energy comes in!   Both Anna and Mark are in a place where they seem to be possibly just going through psychotic breaks.   Honestly, that is part of the brilliance of the film early on, as you will question whether what is happening is really happening, or if it is all a dream or hallucination of the character!  As the film goes on, Mark slowly begins to bond with his son and with Helen, who comes over to check in on Bob.   It is made perfectly clear that Mark is heavily attracted to Helen, as she looks just like Anna, only with a different hair color (he even accused her of wearing a wig the first time they met, thinking she was Anna)!   Helen, likewise, seems to welcome his advances, which puts her in a position of being the ideal woman to contrast Anna’s more wicked energy.   This is where we see more of the dance between sexuality and repression take form, as it may be expected that a teacher of young children would want boundaries with the parent of her student.   Instead of this, Helen came over to their apartment to check on Bob, and she reciprocated all of Mark’s advances!

Now, getting back to what is going on with Anna, she is the crux of the film, the character about whom we are looking to discover the secrets.   It eventually shows that Anna has some dark impulses that she took out on her students when she taught ballet (although we know she quit working a year prior).   We learn this when we see a video that was presumably recorded by Heinrich, which Mark plays during his search for his wife.   Anna is shown to delight in pushing her young dance students past their comfort zone and even causing them pain.   This is done in the context of getting them to become better dancers, like a tough love and no-nonsense teacher, but her energy speaks to something darker.   She also speaks to the camera about her reasoning in quite a chilling way!

That brings us to the Creature Feature part of this story.   You see, Anna had been spending her time with another lover, not Heinrich.   That lover was also not human!   He is shown as a rather grotesque tentacled Monster who feeds on men whom Anna has killed.   It is made abundantly clear that Anna is sleeping with this Monster, even showing this occurs at the end of the film!   The sex between Anna and the Monster is shown to be another way that the Monster feeds.   He becomes more and more humanoid as the film progresses, eventually appearing as a Doppelgänger of Mark at the very end of the film, which shows that Doppelgängers are a main aspect of the film!   The whole idea of Doppelgängers both adds to the confusing and fever dream quality of the film and hints at the dark underbelly.   In folklore, Doppelgängers are often thought of as evil, literally Dark Doubles who will kill you and take over your life!   And that is what happens as Anna and Mark are killed in the end, with the Monster surviving and trying to get to Bob, who is with Helen (as Mark had left him with Helen prior to the final confrontation).   Bob can sense the evil at the door and runs into the bathroom, seemingly drowning himself rather than spending time with this thing that is not his father!

So, yes, the film ends on a very bleak note.   It is an intense film, but one I am so glad that I finally watched!  I interpreted this film to be about the dangers of repressing our Shadows (which makes the inclusion of Doppelgängers really profound), the dangers of pretending all is well, and the dangers of not exploring our inner workings.   Anna and Mark have clearly hidden their desires and not been in open conversations with one another, and now things have come to a head.   Instead of talking and opening up about their darker impulses, they have repressed them, especially Anna.   In fact, that is what I think the Monster is, the literal manifestation of Anna’s pent-up Shadow desires that she never tried to examine with any nuance.   Now these desires have come out and will not be tamped down any longer, with Anna fully glorying in the depravity of her impulses, in both her sexual exploits with the Monster and her violent impulses of killing men!   This film is a stunning reminder of why we must delve into our Shadows and explore our hidden inner workings, so that we will have control over our choices instead of letting our desires control us.   I highly recommend this film for lovers of Monster films and Body Horror.   Isabelle Adjani gives a mind-blowing performance, and Sam Neill is amazing, as always!

I hope you have enjoyed reading my thoughts on Possession.   What is the most important aspect of this film for you?   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is my favorite version of the film poster.   I found the poster on https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082933/.      

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