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“Monstrosity and misogyny in Zulawski’s Possession” by Eddie Falvey

The following post is a mildly edited and expanded reproduction of an introductory talk delivered by myself, Eddie Falvey, for Cert. X’s screening of Possession (Dir. Andrzej Zulawski, 1981). Created by several PhD researchers within the University of Exeter’s English Department, Cert. X aims to bring classic films back to the big screen, with a particular emphasis on cult horror. Hosted by the Exeter Phoenix, screenings have so far included Deep Red (Dir. Dario Argento, 1975), The Witch Who Came From the Sea (Dir. Matt Cimber, 1976), Possession, and The Hills Have Eyes (Dir. Wes Craven, 1977).   

Andrzej Zulawski was born in Poland in 1940. As a filmmaker he never had the opportunity to enjoy the acclaim or exposure of contemporary compatriots such as Andrzej Wadja, Roman Polanski, or Krzysztof Kieslowski but has nevertheless attracted scholarly attention more recently. This neglect should not been seen as a reflection on the quality of his films but was, instead, a natural reaction to the obscure, avant-garde, or downright difficult nature of his films that were often too much for the palettes of mainstream moviegoers. Nevertheless, Zulawski has gained a cult appreciation among fans and critics, not least for Possession which is by far his most accessible (and arguably his most enduring) feature. A final contributing factor to Zulawski’s frequent exclusion from conversations regarding great Polish filmmakers comes down to the controversial temperament of his films; since his second feature The Devils was banned upon release by the then-communist Polish government, the director has struggled to unshackle himself from the controversy that continues to surround his filmography.

The reasonable exposure of Possession owes much to the matter of its notoriety, not to mention to the fact that it is an English language film which, unsurprisingly, contributes to its status. In the United Kingdom, the film belonged to a mostly mucky group of exploitation horrors known as the ‘video nasties’ of the 70s and 80s. Despite Possession’s association with the ‘nasties’ — a group of films either banned or cut here in the UK — Possession never actually feels like it belongs among them; no cuts were insisted upon by the BBFC (a matter that should automatically disqualify it from that list) and, although it was unavailable for some time, the heavily edited version that was that was released in the US came about due to the fact that US censors, not UK, objected to some of the more explicit material. Moreover, its awkward association with the slashers that typically make up the majority of the list is emboldened by the fact that most films on the list lack the clear sophistication of Zulawski’s nightmarish vision of marriage in collapse. As Michael Atkinson rightly points out the film was “roundly dismissed as a cranked-up, tongue-in-cheek horror exercise, [however] Possession becomes a different species of meateater once you realise […] that the man [Zulawski] is as serious as cancer” (‘Blunt Force Trauma’ 80).

Possession’s association with the ‘nasties’ was quickly leapt upon by its distributors who recognised the marketing capital of the notorious tag which situated it among sleazy, exploitation pictures such as Cannibal Holocaust, Zombie Flesh Eaters, and I Spit On Your Grave. Possession’s marketing campaign followed accordingly; the film’s original, theatrical poster (included below) conveys clear indebtedness to the patently misogynistic iconography of the ‘nasties’ which often indulged in images of objectified and/or victimised women. Isabelle Adjani adorns the poster, front and centre, in a provocative yet discomforting state of undress; for a film that depicts a woman on the brink of mental collapse, this particular image is unpleasant at best and downright offensive at worst. Accompanied by a tagline that reads “Your hidden fears will be aroused”, such imagery is complicit in the horror genre’s exploitative representation of mental health disorders (a matter that most ‘nasties’ post-Psycho utilised with merciless glee) and abusive, scopophilic stylisation of women’s bodies as sites of monstrosity and/or abuse. Furthermore, such marketing ploys convey a frankly reductive presentation of Zulawski’s complex psychodrama by diminishing it to a single, unrepresentative image. In another poster (also included) Adjani is locked in a fit of madness and/or desire with phallic tentacles binding her. The most tragic element of all this is the fact that the thing Adjani bears most of all is her soul in what can only be described as a thrilling, award-winning performance (Adjani was awarded Best Actress at Cannes following the film’s premiere). There is no question here as to whom the target demographic was at the time; the image of the possessed woman plays into the hands of the androcentric and sometimes misogynistic orientation of the entire genre. It is an image that frequently adorns the marketing campaigns for notorious films — famously with the likes of The Exorcist and Carrie, but more insidiously with the likes of I Spit on Your Grave, a particularly appalling rape revenge film that occasionally rears its ugly head in critical discussions. Such representations do not present women as flesh-and-blood individuals but rather as objects of male desire serving some ludicrous patriarchal (wet) dream that enables aggressive masculine sexual subjectivities while reducing women to little more than their bodies. Such marketing packages the worst offenders as expressive of a terrifying embodiment of patriarchal power that is both violent and overtly sexualised, promising films that hang on their money shots and not on their substance.

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Figures 1 and 2: Left, the original poster for Possession bearing the tagline “Your hidden fears will be aroused”. Right, a more recent poster for the film.

All this aside, anyone who has seen Possession will tell you that the film only just about qualifies as a genuine horror. Despite the more traditionally “horrific” second act, Possession is primarily a film about a marriage in ruin — imagine, if you will, Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage crossed with the surrealism of David Lynch and, finally, complimented by a modest sprinkling of Hitchcock and you are some of the way there. Moreover, it is worth noting that Possession was filmed in Berlin by an ostracised Polish filmmaker using American money and an international cast; everything about this film, from narrative, locations, score, and hyper-kinetic camerawork, screams dislocation and displacement. In fact, one may go further and consider Possession in light of that fact that it was made during the breakdown of Zulawski’s own marriage at which point the film assumes new, fascinating dynamics. Possession is a bitter film, no doubt, but it is also an unrelentingly sad one. While some may feel affronted by the misogynistic tendencies of Sam Neil’s character — who may or may not be functioning as an autobiographical device conveying Zulawski himself — if one makes use of that old-world misogyny as a window through which we may explore the breakdown of this particular marriage, then the source of Anna’s madness/despair/alienation comes into view. As Michael Goddard points out, the “evil [in Possession] is not something abstract, but something that has been produced between Anna and Marc, signifying the darkness that has come to contaminate their relationship” (‘Beyond Polish Moral Realism: The Subversive Cinema of Andrzej Żuławski’ 246). Some might find the sex and violence brutal and affecting, but Marc and Anna quickly unveil the destructive powers of possession in its many forms. Viewing the film for the first time often amounts to a chilling, incapacitating experience; it is much like peering into fragments of a broken mirror in which the doomed couple expose the masochistic treachery of mistaking power, possession, and sex for love.


Eddie Falvey is an AHRC-funded PhD candidate in film. While his interests are diverse, his current research is focused on early American film for which he is completing a thesis titled ‘The Birth of a Cinematic City: From an Iconographical to an Iconological Reading of New York on Early Film’. 

Soldiers, Cinemas and the First World War by Chris Grosvenor

Every day I read stories about men suffering through the horrors of the First World War. I should correct that: they’re not stories, they are real experiences, real lives and real facts. Necessarily, my research on the provision of film entertainment for British and Dominion soldiers during WWI means learning much about the lives of those who fought and died for their country: both the good times and the bad. As a researcher, it means confronting the harsh realities of war on a day-to-day basis, and despite being a century removed from the experiences found in the war diaries, newspapers and other documents I examine, the images and experiences I come across are no less harrowing, heartbreaking or poignant. Reading through the war diaries of a particular division or battalion, you begin to feel the ebbs and flows of the conflict, the highs and lows, the much needed periods of “rest” behind the lines and the dreadful anticipation of returning to the trenches. The casualty lists and statistics are staggering in themselves, but it is the personal narratives of loss and suffering that resonate the most. First-hand accounts of the conflict – descriptions of daily life on the front lines – places everything in front of you in a very real way. The immediacy, emotion and honesty that are found in the faded lines of a soldier’s diary, a diary you hold in your hands one-hundred years after it had made its way through the horrific conditions of trench warfare – even if its owner was not as fortunate – puts everything in perspective.

The fact that the same soldier visited a divisional cinema in the hope of forgetting, for a time at least, the horrors of the war is an equally moving sentiment. It’s very easy for us in the 21st Century to look back on the people who endured and suffered through the Great War, either at home or on the front, as being far removed from ourselves. Their lives must have been so different, we tell ourselves. Their interests and habits, how they passed the time and enjoyed themselves, seem so archaic. Many people today would find it difficult to place themselves in the shoes of such a person.

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An open air cinema on the Western Front. Source: Imperial War Museum.

However, if I were to take one thing away from my research up to this point, it would be that the presence of the cinema on the front lines has compacted the distance in space and time between myself and those who fought in the war. Of course, the generation of men and women who experienced the war are exactly the same as us, with the same fears, hopes and desires. But for me, there is something very moving about the fact that whilst living through a conflict of such unprecedented scale and brutality, soldiers would turn to the cinema as a form of comfort and escape from the immediate dangers and disturbing sights of the battlefield.

‘Fancy seeing a cinema show within the enemy’s shell fire!’ one soldier proclaimed in 1915. His disbelief may equal our own today, perhaps. The idea that the bulky, impractical technology needed to project film made its way on to the front line is a baffling notion in and of itself. Yet, dozens, even hundreds of makeshift cinemas did find a home on the battlefields of the First World War, established in dilapidated barns, shoddy huts or even in the open air. These cinemas, and the films they showed, most notably the films of Charlie Chaplin and other contemporary comedians, brightened the lives and raised the morale of those in the midst of the veritable hell on earth that the war had fostered. They turned to the cinema to ‘relieve the monotony and depression of trench warfare’. ‘It’s like being at home’ wrote another soldier, a sentiment shared by many. ‘Oh how we laughed – laughed as we had never laughed before’ proclaimed another about the antics of Chaplin. Like it is today, the cinema was a place where soldiers relaxed, met their friends and shared a laugh or two. On a day like today, it’s important to remember that these people were just the same as us, sharing the same interests and passions. Even with the distance of a century, soldiers would flock to front line cinemas just as we visit our local Vue or Picturehouse, for comfort, for friendship, to enjoy the film on screen and to escape, for a time at least, from the world outside.

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After studying English Literature and Film Studies as an undergraduate at the University of Exeter (2010-13), followed by an MA in Film Studies at the University of Warwick (2013-14), Chris is now a PhD student at the University of Exeter. He is currently researching the history of cinema entertainment for troops at home and on the front lines during the First World War, a project which is supervised by Dr Joe Kember and Dr Debra Ramsay. His research interests include British silent cinema and the films of Charlie Chaplin. Read Chris’s research profile here.