The Possessed
Sat 14 MarOne of the most underseen films in the entire Wajda oeuvre, The Possessed is based on the notorious novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, first serialised between 1871 and 1872. Focused on a group of young anarchists whose radical politics and actions bind them together in a sinister brotherhood of feverish ideology, the film engages in deep philosophical rumination (even as it employs elements of a thriller). A stellar, highly unusual international cast (including Isabelle Huppert, Lambert Wilson, Jerzy Radziwiłowicz, as well as… Omar Sharif and scandalous film director Bertand Blier!) adds a welcome dash of intensity to the film, scripted by the celebrated Jean-Clause Carrière and shot at the very cusp of the Cold War coming to an end.
Fittingly enough, Andrzej Żuławski adapted the same Dostoyevsky novel as 1985’s La Femme publique (The Public Woman), also featured in this series.
This film is part of the strand: Two Visions, One Nation: Wajda and Żuławski (Read more below)
Introduction
Screening preceded by a prerecorded introduction from 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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