Chanelling Cold War Chic In Andrzej Żuławski's Possession

In February this year, iconoclastic Polish director Andrzej Żuławski, lost a battle with cancer at the age of 75. The oeuvre he leaves in his wake ranges from the somewhat controversial to the totally unnerving, with his most significant work banned by governmental forces or thrust into video nasty status. Possession falls into the latter category, deservedly gaining an inevitable cult following amongst art house aficionados, one that remains steadfast to this day. With the film in question, Żuławski produced what can only be described as a grotesquely affecting break up chronicle, outlining the splintered relationship between a couple in the midst of a marital split. Namely, Anna (portrayed by Isabelle Adjani, whose disquieting performance becomes burned into your subconscious) and Mark (Sam Neill) who are both experiencing heartache with adverse and demonic side effects.

Set in West Berlin during the cold war and shot in apartments overlooking the wall’s concrete menace, the film brazenly remarks on separation and division, both personally and politically. Horror and science fiction meet with psychodrama, paranormally distorting reality; as a consequence, the plot is near impenetrable and becomes purely allegorical, musing on the subject of divorce. Special effects come courtesy of Carlo Rimbaldi, the mastermind behind the puppets in Alien and E.T., creating for Żuławski a plethora of oozing gore and a rubbery, tentacled monster who Anna ends up jumping into bed with. However, all of this perplexing and cartoonish carnage is set against a chic aesthetic that is achingly considered; here, we unpick its influence.

1. Simplify your styling process 
The joy of uniform dressing is that its ease allows for extra minutes to squeeze into a hectic schedule; think Grace Coddington’s monochromatic ensembles, or Phoebe Philo’s shirt, trouser and trainer go-to. Anna is perpetually rushed off her feet in a flurry of murder and adultery, so in order to simplify matters she wears an almost identical look throughout the film: four versions of a royal blue polyester tea dress. Dove grey opaque tights and charcoal pumps add detail and on occasion she’ll wear sunglasses if a particularly unholy mood takes her. The beauty in the continuity of these dresses lies in the fact that we witness them becoming increasingly soiled with sweat marks, grease and miscellaneous stains, Żuławski yet again heightening the mystery by withholding any indication as to where the vile blemishes came from. Let’s pray Anna is also in possession of a suitable dry cleaning service.
 

2. Don’t knock coloured contact lenses until you’ve tried them 
Anna’s enigmatic and wholly creepy doppelganger appears at opportune intervals throughout the film in the form of virtuous schoolteacher Helen. Gentle in nature, and dressed head-to-toe in blinding, milky white clothes; she serves a contrast to Anna’s demonic identity and is arguably a representation of the love Mark wistfully yearns for from his estranged wife. Like Invasion of The Body Snatchers, Helen eventually sets up home in place of Anna. And, played by a contact lens-wearing Adjani, her alien eyes are a jarring emerald green in opposition to the actresses’ usual blue orbs.

3. Medical ailments can be rather elegant
Louis Vuitton’s S/S08 collection inspired by the nurses of Richard Prince this is not. But the women in Possession make real life injuries work in their sartorial favour. “Limping to the rescue, nothing can stop me!”, says Marge. She is Anna’s eccentric and witchy friend, greeting Mark with an offer of childcare for his son in an unsettlingly sing-song tone. She sports a purple jumpsuit, fur stole, golden trinkets and a leg cast fashioned around a high heel sandal to match her elevated left foot. Anna also takes on the medicinal trend: after inflicting herself with a wound using an electric meat carver, Mark dresses the cut, wrapping a bandage around her neck like a gauze collar.

4. Art direct with the unexpected
Żuławski’s perfectly drab choice of colour scheme for Possession is meticulously considered. Dismal shades of grey in suiting reflect the depleted architecture and frigid skies of cold war Berlin and of course, the concrete of the ominous wall. Suggestive of hospitals and morgues, there is a heavy use of sterile white plastics and tiling in the backdrop, with insipid blues appearing in bed sheets and carpets. Murky browns, moss greens and biscuit beiges all mingle with the aforementioned to create a neutral milieu. Era-specific and mid-century furnishings combine with strategically placed spider plants, so that the screen can often appear like a 1980s advertisement for Giorgio Armani or Calvin Klein, straight from the pages of Vogue. This ensures that whenever blood is spilled – and you’d better believe that there are copious amounts of it – the crimson gore makes a gruesome contrast. 

5. Dance like everybody's watching
Everyone who is familiar with Possession - and perhaps even those who haven’t viewed the film in full – would agree that Isabelle Adjani’s unforgettably visceral performance descending down a U-Bahn tunnel is a three-minute long demonstration of acting in it’s most physically demanding form. Adjani’s corporeal characterisation of Anna’s psychological state includes bodily movements that form the basis of an avant-garde contemporary dance meets exorcism, coming to a head in a choreographed nightmare: the infamous subway scene. Here we witness Anna wailing like a banshee, laughing maniacally and convulsing as though part of a shamanistic ritual. Hurling a bag of groceries against the wall, the contents explode, showering her in milk and food debris which mingle with an oozing ectoplasm-like substance, dribbling out from somewhere behind her ears. It is a brutally original and wholly unnerving scene, which not only propelled the movie into cult status, but also affirmed Żuławski's visionary talent.