Possession
Sat 07 MarPossession emerged as the ‘loser’ of the unofficial duel of two Cannes 1982 competition entries by esteemed Eastern European masters. While Andrzej Wajda’s somber Man of Iron won the Palme d’Or, his onetime protégé’s ambitious body horror garnered only a Best Actress accolade for Isabelle Adjani.
Żuławski was adamant that his tale of dissolution of a marriage (with Adjani and Sam Neill at their most visceral and anguished) was in fact a Cold War parable of pure evil infiltrating the West through the cracks of the Berlin Wall (prominently featured in the opening credits). Set to a hypnotic, percussive synth score by Andrzej Korzyński, Possession remains one of a kind — a true horror masterpiece, an acting tour de force, as well as a work of lacerating autobiography, in which Żuławski reworks his own split from his wife Małgorzata Braunek in terms of a delirious genre ride.
This film is part of the strand: Two Visions, One Nation: Wajda and Żuławski (Read more below)
Special Screening
The screening will be introduced by season curator Michal Oleszczyk
Two Visions, One Nation: Wajda and Żuławski
Andrzej Wajda was Andrzej Żuławski’s senior by 14 years, and in terms of international festival prizes (Palme d’Or, Academy Award), he seems to be the more recognized of the two. And yet, Wajda’s filmography was regularly visited, interfered with — as well as downright haunted — by the presence of his brilliant student, assistant and (ultimately) creative opponent.
Żuławski’s initial fascination with Wajda was clear in his choice of a M.A. thesis he wrote on Kanal in 1959 at IDHEC film school in Paris. Later on, he assisted Wajda on the Polish segment of Love at Twenty (1962) and on the epic Ashes (1966). From 1970 on, Żuławski turns from protégé to rival, as his progressively more frenetic films challenge Wajda’s more classical approach.
This series aims at presenting a series of double-bills that highlight the myriad ways in which Wajda’s and Żuławski’s bodies of work not only co-exist in a lively dialogue with one another, but also joyfully meet, orgiastically merge and violently clash. While both artists were different in their career trajectories and personal choices, what unites them is a fervid engagement with the vortex of Polish history, eager exploration of class and ideological conflicts of the 20th century, as well as — last but not least — the transnational dimension of their work, with Żuławski traversing the Iron Curtain as a director of alternatively Polish and French films, and Wajda engaging in multiple co-productions, in which he tried to address international audience on its own turf.
This series, while far from exploring the complete set of connections between two filmographies, is an invitation to further comparisons and explorations.
Michał Oleszczyk, Season Curator
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