You need to watch the very surreal classic Possession

Let me say that I am Extremely I advise you to enter Own blind. Don’t watch the trailer. Don’t even finish reading this. Go watch it now dither, standardor Metrograph. It is also available through Umbrella or He hopes If your library provides access. Then come back so we can talk about it in the comments. Although this is probably not suitable for highly sensitive people.

Own It’s the kind of movie that can be hard to follow, even if the entire plot is spoiled for you. After watching it twice, listening to three different podcasts, and reading multiple articles about it, I’m still not 100% sure what happened at different points in the movie. I just know that I loved him.

I immediately fell into a story about a crumbling marriage against the backdrop of the Berlin Wall. It’s a huge metaphor for the division between the stars – the young and very handsome Sam Neill (Mark), and Isabelle Adjani (Anna), who gives one of the most unique and unnerving performances in the history of cinema. Watching Adjani on screen is exhausting – she oscillates between unsettling detachment and high-octane delirium with alarming ease and speed. It’s the kind of performance Adjani gives when you hear him Post-traumatic stress disorderYou are not surprised.

The third standout performance comes from Heinz Bennett, who plays Heinrich, the man Mark believes Anna will leave him for. He moves through every scene like a drunken ballet dancer, and there’s almost something there Wiss Ian About handing it over. (It certainly doesn’t help that it keeps repeating Mark Name.) In a more grounded film, the way he charges across the frame would seem ridiculous. But in an abstract nightmare OwnBennet fits perfectly, rolling and alternately attacking Mark and getting close to him.

Not only does director Andrzej Żuławski impress his stars with wonderfully turbulent performances, he also constructs vivid tableaux. Mark and Anna sit in a café on the corner bench facing each other as they discuss the terms of their separation. (Before Mark tears up the café, throwing chairs and tables in a panic for the ages.) Sam Neill violently pushes the rocking chair back and forth as the focus expertly tracks him. The movie is simply amazing.

That is, until it isn’t.

What starts as a bad excursion about a failed marriage turns into nausea-inducing body horror in the back half. It is revealed that Anna will not leave Mark for Heinrich. In fact, Heinrich is absolutely desperate to get Anna back, find her and make her his own. Instead, they are tied to what Anna Bogutskaya (host of The Final Girls podcast and author of Feeding the Monster) calls “Lovecraftian fuck monster“.

It is a strange collection of tentacles, bleeding craters, and strange human features that he has created Carlo RambaldiWhich won Oscars for special effects Alien and at. It feeds on people. Their bodies, but also their souls. Anna seems to think he’s some kind of god, something sacred. She uses it to explore parts of herself that she repressed or lost in her relationship with Mark.

The other men in her life cannot satisfy her, so she creates an ideal lover. What starts out as a slimy creature, is no different child from erasereventually becoming Mark’s doppelgänger.

Then there’s the subway scene. If you’ve ever heard of it Own Before, maybe it’s because This scene. Adjani throws herself around an abandoned tunnel, grunting, screaming and convulsing, before bleeding, God knows best, everywhere on the wet concrete floor. As a viewer, I feel exhausted after watching it. It’s three of the most intense minutes ever in a celluloid film, and even if the rest of the film is terrible, Own It would be worth watching just for this scene.

There are many different readings of this film. I’m still not entirely sure what will happen in the end. Did their son Bob drown himself? Is Mark’s lookalike the Antichrist? Is Helen also a bi person? (I think so.) What’s the deal with Heinrich’s mother? Is Anna possessed? Or is it the proud possession of the men in her life trying to exercise ownership over her?

In the month since I first saw this movie, I’ve told everyone I know about it. I can’t stop thinking about it or talking about it.