Possession (1981)
In all of the eulogizing that followed the tragic loss beloved New Zealand actor Sam Neill, naturally the films we all know and cherish were mentioned....'Jurassic Park', 'The Hunt For Red October', 'Event Horizon', 'My Brilliant Career', 'The Piano' , 'Dead Calm' and so many others.
But hardly a mention at all of this one-of-a-kind entry in his filmography......a disturbing, nightmarish horror-drama from writer-director Andrzej Zulawski. It's a film that featured Neill and his co-star Isabelle Adjani throwing all caution to the winds, giving astounding over-the-top performances that actors dream about but rarely get the opportunity to realize.
Neill plays Mark, some kind of vague secret agent who won't accept the latest mission from his superiors. His marriage to high strung Anna (Adjani) crumbles when she reveals she's seeing another man and they bitterly squabble over who'll keep custody of their little boy Bob (Michael Hogben).
Anna's barely contained rising hysteria clashes with Mark's ever increasing explosive rage. And in Anna, the demolition of both her marriage and her mind manifests itself as an oozing, tentacled creature (a live practical effect from Carlo Rambaldi, the creator of Spielberg's E.T. and 'Close Encounters' aliens.)
Adjani's work here defies all rational description as she shrieks, moans, howls at times, crawls about on all fours. Neill, one of the most strikingly charismatic and versatile actors we've ever been gifted with in cinema, matches Adjani's amazing work scene for scene.
Together, these two actors bravely perform like high flying trapeze artists without a net, pushing their to talents to the very edge of whatever they're capable of........which in the case of "Possession", is anything. Their Mark and Anna are so bonded in their mutual madness, you can start to believe that together they themselves must have spawned this gruesome creature that kills whoever stumbles near it..... and whose final evolution becomes one of the film's darkest surprises.
You may well ask at this point....yeh, but what's all this craziness about anyway?
Don't expect the film to answer any of the questions it raises for an audience. It remains now, as it was in 1981, a bleak enigma, a slow trip into hell with no tour guide to point out or explain the horrific sights along the way. Make of it what you will......
As for Sam Neill, whose decades long career took him from Hollywood blockbusters to the most challenging and artistic of independent films, he never gave less than skilled memorable performances every time he faced the camera .....he embodied that time worn accolade, "an actor's actor".
(Though Neill himself thought his screen test to play James Bond didn't go well, we always thought he would've made a perfect kickass Bond, suave, assured and dangerous as hell, with a repressed violent undercurrent lurking beneath the surface....best example: his underplaying the role of Satan's grown up son in "Omen III")
For those willing to take the plunge, "Possession" as obtuse and bizarre as it is, offers a chance to view a young Sam Neill in what we think may stand as the most daring work of his career.
And it goes without saying, no horror buff should miss out on seeing this one....
4 stars (****).
For Sam Neill's entire lifetime of roles, 5 stars (*****)
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