Spread the love
Renee Ruin of the Night Shift Podcast is back with Forrest, J. Andrew World and Conan Neutron on Australian Time for a discussion of Andrzej Żuławski‘s 1981 horror/divorce masterpiece.
Insane. Absolutely insane marriage, body horror, cosmic dread, psychological head destroyer. Zulawski ruling the game here in his first film after the sadly unfinished (and amazing!) On the Silver Globe and his most well received. Just as that is non-Euclidean geometry sci-fi, this is the same for psychological thriller/horror. The aggressive hand held camera work here well compliments the over the top performances and really makes the whole thing SEEM insane.
A young Sam Neill is quite great here, but kiiiiinda an all timer with Isabelle Adjani’s performance. I had heard about the subway scene, wow. Yes. A subway miscarriage of hope. (What a scene!)
Truly have never seen anything quite like this. Remarkable film. Hyper expressionistic and brilliantly original, insane cinema.
Possession as in the state of having or owning something. Not demonic. Anna is so enamored with love that she brings forth an allegorical tentacle creature. Mark is so obsessed with the idea of Anna that he projects Helen as looking like her. Both green eyes, the color of jealousy.
All of this in the divided city of Berlin. So close, yet so far.
“It doesn’t hurt, does it?” Physical pain that doesn’t come anywhere near the emotional pain in the name of love. We are the authors of our own misery.
Perhaps the most profound, surreal, artistically vivid and intense exploration ever committed to screen of loveless marriage and divorce. Longing for meaning and some idea of each other that doesn’t match reality. All delivered through the lens of insane cinema, cinema that is insane.
