Possessor - 2020
This review may contain spoilers.
Not surprisingly, it seems most of the dialogue centered around Possessor at the time of its release was in regards not to the singular vision and talent of its director, but rather his relation to his father. I guess this is to be expected. The Cronenberg name and brand of visceral, high-minded explorations on cultural trends and the eroding influences of technology admixed with good old-fashioned grisly body horror is a particular delicacy. Those on the inside hive of his works would draw near to branding him a saint. Surely, at least a visionary. As they say, the man casts a big shadow.
So it is in some senses with his father's legacy that Brandon Cronenberg must contend when he gets to work on a project like this one. Even so, I have to say the young man's aesthetic is fairly sui generis. By far the most impressive thing about this picture is its stunning visual style. That Cronenberg was able to do so much of it using practical effects is all the more shocking. There are simply some jaw-dropping sequences of act of possessions, conversations on a kind of psychic plane, a distinct color palette, and the like. The tone and brightness of these details are different from the elder director.
Moreover, Brandon is a MUCH DARKER storyteller. No one would mistake David's works for a Capra picture, but he nearly always mitigated the bleakness of his worlds with tawdry moments and campy humor. His films had that knowing self-awareness of their content. Possessor's director offers us no such oases. The themes are relentlessly dark not just conceptually but in their telling. This is a big difference. I was just about to say that the gap was big enough to even avoid comparison, but then there was a knife swung that cut off two fingers. The detached digits then began wiggling on their own, and I went - "Nope!" New way of crafting ideas, but still a chip off the old block in key ways.
I now realize I've just become guilty of exactly what I was criticizing other reviewers for at the outset. So let's leave all that behind. I'll be honest, I expected a different film than I got when I sat down to watch Possessor. I was anticipating much more overt capital i "Ideas," with the actual body horror elements running secondary as means to an end. What I got instead was a real thrilling yarn about a woman who works for an organization that psychically enters other people's consciences and forces them to commit horrific crimes before offing themselves. Tasya Vos (the fantastically blank Andrea Riseborough) is simply the very best at going "under" for these kinds of missions and then coming back to herself and her own life unscathed. Or is she?
Several scenes in this picture are just totally arresting. The showdown between Christopher Abbott's character (whom Vos has possessed) and his girlfriend's father (the very game Sean Bean) is just enthralling. You can't look away, as things go from bad to worse. The psychic plane meeting after, where the characters at last "see" each other in Abbott's consciousness, should win awards for its visual bravura. The head smash sequence which became a mask that Abbott's Colin donned as he traipsed around Vos' own conscience looking for a place to enact his vengeance just BLEW MY MIND.
This all sets us up for an extraordinary final 10 minutes. I will not spoil more than I already have, except to note these elements - more gore, more deaths and possessions and a heart-wrenching moment of loss. Of course, this is immediately followed by the EVEN MORE crushingrealization that Riseborough's character is so far gone that it doesn't even reach her. Like I said, darkness reigns in Possessor's world. The outlook is beyond bleak.
So these are all the finer details of plot and pacing. I've noted as well the immersive storytelling coupled with some of the best visuals you'll see all year. I wish to add that the score is somewhat muted and backgrounded, but it is still effective as a mood setter. Still, what I find perhaps the most breathtaking is the way Brandon Cronenberg DOES deliver on the big ideas. When you reflect back after the fact, you begin to see all the themes the man was presenting. He just did so in such an admirably covert way. This film is about the loss of autonomy that humans are increasingly giving up to their technological devices. It's about cameras which pry and spy behind closed doors (This isn't all that hard to believe for us, is it?) It also is concerned with the question of what happens to an individual when they allow themselves to be subsumed by an outside influence. How soul-killing and humanity eroding can the enterprise of technological engagement become?
But you don't even have to think about these things if you don't wish. Brandon Cronenberg has given us a thrilling story that stands on its own two feet. It's a kind of morality tale on the dangers of techie overreach possessing our own skulls through a particular aesthetic of body horror. But it's also just maniacal, singular, gruesome, and entirely kick ass. I love it more every time I think of it, and thanks to the younger man's directorial eye, that is often indeed.
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