{"id":298373,"date":"2026-10-20T16:51:39","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T16:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/20\/the-wall-between-us-possession-at-45\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T16:51:39","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T16:51:39","slug":"the-wall-between-us-possession-at-45","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/20\/the-wall-between-us-possession-at-45\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wall Between Us: Possession at 45"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Over the past few years, Andrzej \u017bu\u0142awski\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>Possession<\/i> has been put on the internet\u2019s radar as a\u00a0morbid curiosity. You can find the film on endless \u200b\u2018<\/span>most disturbing movies ever made\u2019\u00a0<\/span>iceberg lists<\/span><\/a> that the algorithm favours; the gruesome, uncanny moments being perfect visuals for clickable thumbnails. And then there is Anna (Isabelle Adjani) thrashing around in oversized Yves Saint Laurent sunglasses, becoming\u00a0<\/span>the<\/i> \u200b\u2018<\/span>weird girl\u2019 Halloween costume of recent years. Screenshots of her mid-scream and covered in blood have become an essential Instagram grid post for the girl who\u2019s going through it. But beyond fear and social media, it\u2019s the film\u2019s dedication to raw emotion that makes it stand out in our apathetic time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Adjani\u2019s unique performance, inspired by Jerzy Grotowski, the influential Polish theatre director whose approach to performance tested the limits of physical endurance and \u200b\u201c<\/span><\/span>exploited the intimacy of live theatre to confront the audience directly<\/span><\/a>,\u201d can feel alien in a\u00a0time when we are so used to seeing perfection, even when it is meant to be ugly. The source of her palpable rage is open to interpretation: the loss of identity after motherhood, falling out of love, the visceral pain of divorce. While these themes are evergreen, it is\u00a0<\/span>Possession\u2019s<\/i> collapse of communication which makes it stand out more than ever 45<\/span>\u00a0years later. Anna and Mark (Sam Neill), a\u00a0young married couple with a\u00a0son living in West Berlin, reach otherworldly neurotic heights as they go in circles, figuratively and literally: arguments that sound like unsolvable riddles, chasing one another around identical bare streets, and doppelgangers that take the narrative even further from reality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Whilst we watch Anna and Mark\u2019s relationship crumble, we repeatedly see the Berlin Wall looming around them. The film opens with the graffiti, \u200b\u201c<\/span>DIE<\/span> MAUER<\/span> MU\u00df WEG<\/span>\u201d (\u201cThe Wall Must Go\u201d), and ends with real guards on the Wall peering into the camera through binoculars. Watching\u00a0<\/span>Possession<\/i> today, it\u2019s hard not to see the film as a\u00a0mirror. Like Anna and Mark, we must go about our lives being watched in a\u00a0pressurised, paranoid, and confused reality, where\u00a0<\/span>online censorship is disguised as a\u00a0safety act<\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/span>AI<\/span> is causing people to be wrongly jailed<\/span><\/a>. Indeed,\u00a0<\/span>as Adam Curtis puts it<\/span><\/a>, \u200b\u201c<\/span>we live in a\u00a0time of great uncertainty and confusion. Events keep happening that seem inexplicable and out of control.\u201d This external chaos seeps into the home, often without us even realising, as we\u2019re left wondering why a\u00a0loved one in front of us is now a\u00a0stranger, and how a\u00a0life that should have been simple came to resemble a\u00a0haunted house at a\u00a0theme park.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A few hours of doomscrolling can make you want to throw yourself around an empty subway, screaming and throwing up. With the average day in 2026<\/span> including smiling for the Flock cameras and giving websites your passport details that will be leaked onto 4<\/span>chan in a\u00a0few months, watching\u00a0<\/span>Possession<\/i> is relatable and cathartic. We can live vicariously through Anna\u2019s thrashing and screaming, her performance a\u00a0convincing choreography of suffocation.\u00a0<\/span>Possession<\/i> is a\u00a0rare piece of media that successfully conveys the surreal, absurd terror that has crept into everyday life over the past 20<\/span>\u00a0years. Films like\u00a0<\/span>The Social Network<\/i><\/a> and\u00a0<\/span>Ingrid Goes West<\/i><\/a> no longer cut it when there\u2019s an\u00a0<\/span>AI<\/span> boyfriend epidemic<\/span><\/a>; instead, the stories we crave ought to be as unbelievable as the one we are living in. Being plugged in to a\u00a0constant stream of disturbing, hyperreal content has unsurprisingly desensitised us. Anna and Mark\u2019s doppelgangers, cold and complacent, are eerie parallels to our own online personas \u2013 curated versions of ourselves that must follow terms and conditions in order to exist convincingly, divorced from real human experience in their deliberate and fine-tuned makeup.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n