Possession (1981)

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Daniel Bird here is joined by the film's American co-writer Frederic Tuten, whose thoughtful reflections prove every bit as revealing and entertaining as Zulawski's, covering new ground and bringing a welcome second perspective to previously discussed elements. Topics covered here include how Tuten came to be involved with the project, how it dented his liberal politics, his positive working relationship with Zulawski, the initial casting of Sam Waterston in the role of Mark, what Adjani brought to the character of Anna, working with Sam Neill, the subway scene, his disappointment that Zulawski chose to show the monster (which Bird convincingly counters), and a good deal more. Tuten and Bird are clearly on the same intellectual wavelength here, resulting in some fascinating and in-depth discussions on everything from politics to the cinema of Jean-Luc Godard. Again, a terrific extra. According to IMDB Bruno Nuytten is the credited cinematographer and second sight have not mentioned him. Instead they are using the camera operator. Given the variations of "right" for this film I am not faithful in any one person's assessment of that TBH A Divided City - a before-and-after look at the key locations seen in Possession. The new footage is from modern-day Berlin, where Possession was shot. With English text. (8 min).

thinks Dad is abusing little Em, but you just know in your heart of hearts that after a few long, doleful looks, she'll indicative of the unbelievable lengths people will go to to "fictionalize" the truth). Ever since Frances, I've had a So it seems as if like LCQF essentially did what Second Sight is going to do, which can still be as accurate as anything the director would have or could approve. Yes. terms of their storytelling, but the fact is, these films are often as fictional as any offering made up from scratch.course the film never really makes anything very clear). Anyone who has ever attended a Lubavitcher service will As a portrait of a relationship collapsing into madness the film would be strong enough meat, but underscoring the drama are a number of potent metaphoric strands whose purpose and interrelationship require at least two viewings to untangle and fully appreciate. Chief amongst these is a fascination with duality, appropriate in an ideologically and physically divided city (this choice of location was a deliberate political statement on the exiled Zulawski's part), which is most literally realised in the figure of warm and kind-hearted schoolteacher Helen, who bonds with the couple's young son Bob and is an idealised dead ringer for Anna and at one point looks set to replace her in the family unit. It's uncertain whether this visual similarity to Anna is actually the product of Mark's own loneliness and wish fulfilment or a genuine doppelgänger whose male equivalent is slowly taking shape in Anna's bedraggled apartment, a creature born of Anna's unhappiness and neurosis (given disturbingly gooey shape by master creature creator Carlo Rambaldi). It's a concept that was successfully road-tested by David Cronenberg two years earlier in The Brood – no surprises, then, that the broken relationships in both films were autobiographical in origin and the product of the directors' hostility towards their respective ex-partners. Umbrella’s release of Possession isn’t the final word on the film, but it certainly offers plenty of great bonus material, as well as a fine presentation. Both fans and newcomers looking for a cheaper alternative to Mondo Vision’s now fairly-pricey Blu-ray releases should be more than happy with this.

Andrzej Zulawski Interview - in this video interview, director Andrzej Zulawski recalls how Possession came to exist and discusses the socio-political climate in Poland at the time when the film was made. The Polish director also discusses the unique qualities of the main characters in Possession, Isabelle Adjani's legendary performance, and the film's visual style. The interview was produced by Jerome Wybon for TF1 Video in 2009. It also appears on the Region-B release of Possession. In French, with optional English subtitles. (36 min). initially confused as to why these "finals", as they're called, were on the right side of the words, which really Mondo Vision's Blu-ray release of Possession uses as foundation the same recent restoration of the film which British distributors Second Sight Films accessed when they prepared their Blu-ray release for the UK market. However, the high-definition transfers the two releases use are not identical. having been deeply influenced by the Friedkin film). A sweet little suburban girl gets taken over by demonic spirits andseventies, choreographed by his longtime collaborator Jerome Robbins. The ballet was based on a 1914 play in Yiddish It's finally happened: my extremely rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew has paid off. Instead of struggling to haltingly

A brief but informative look at the work of Polish film poster artists Barbara Baranowska, aka Basha, who designed the poster for Possession that features on the cover of this very Blu-ray disc. This history is provided by Daniel Bird's soberly delivered but well-written narration, illustrated by the often striking posters themselves. somewhat unwieldy Shloyme-Zanvl). Dybbuks are malevolent spirits which possess people and they have long been a In the scene shown, the blue tone present in some transfers of the film (and in the "before" image which was adjusted to show those same colours) is specific to the transfer itself. It was not present in the original film.to right formulation. My wife and I first became aware of this because Hebrew has several letters which take different The above post explaination doesn't line up with LCQF's restoration notes which consulted multiple sources to get the color timing they landed on. Second sights explanation also doesn't say much other than instructing people that an OCN doesn't have a baked in color timing which is obvious for anyone who has worked with film negatives or digital raw files say the devil's in the details. Or, perhaps, maybe the devil made the disc author do it. Either way it's a fitting metaphor shots where something suddenly juts out from the side of the frame unexpectedly. But like the Hebrew on the disc's Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.67:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Andrzej Zulawski's Possession arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Mondo Vision.