 Epilepsy Warning: The film contains a number of sequences with bright flashing lights, so please be careful! Assassination’s a tricky business, one that requires a lot of tools. Knives, guns, poisons – what’s the best murder weapon? How about another human being? Brandon Cronenberg’s second feature Possessor presents us with a world in which the technology exists to implant the consciousness of one person into another, overriding their identity and allowing them to be used like a puppet in order to commit any kind of atrocity. It’s the perfect crime: take control of an unwitting fall guy, have them do the dirty deed then get out and back into your own body via your vessel’s suicide. Andrea Riseborough (Mandy) is Tasya Voss, the assassin in question. Her latest assignment sees her take over the body of Colin Tate (played by Catch-22’s Christopher Abbott), a former cocaine-dealer turned hopeful social-climber. Tasya-as-Colin sows discord in his life in the run-up to the assassination of Colin’s boss (Sean Bean, enjoying the chance to play a smug rich prick) and girlfriend (Tuppence Middleton), to make the murder-suicide seem like the work of a man on the edge and thus not suspicious. Unfortunately Colin proves to have a stronger personality than expected and starts to fight back. Cue lots of mind-fuckery and bizarre imagery as the two personalities clash and fight for control of one body. First, the elephant in the room: This is a very CronenbergTM concept with themes that are no doubt very familiar to anyone acquainted with his father’s work. Identity, perception, bodily autonomy – all very familiar ground. In many ways, this feels like a companion piece and a spiritual successor to David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ, what with all the jacking in and the questiontioning of what’s real and what’s illusion. Also Jennifer Jason Leigh is in it as Tasya’s boss, a character who may not be a million miles away from an extrapolation of virtual-world-creator Allegra Geller. This isn’t to devalue Brandon C’s work by suggesting it’s derivative, of course, far from it; in this age of social media and increased connectivity there’s such a lot of interesting ground to cover, and Possessor is a fascinating exploration of the intersection of these areas. The very first thing we see in film is a black woman who’s actions are not her own, subsumed by and carrying out the will of a white woman, who has her commit suicide-by-cop once the dirty deed is done, discarded and disposed of like a tool that’s no longer of use. The ultimate act of colonisation. We’re also shown the flip-side of the process, what all this body-hopping does to Tasya herself. After each session she has to ground herself by holding mementos of her past, to job her memory of who she actually she is. We see how distant she’s become from the people in her life, her estranged husband and son, whom she can barely wait to get away from and escape back into someone else’s head. There’s an implied suggestion that she’s addicted to the process, and to the killing itself. Her assassinations are getting more visceral, more brutal, and she seems to crave the slaughter. The bloodier the better. And boy is this film bloody! Right from the off Cronenberg lets us know this film isn’t for the squeamish, and the balance of shocking carnage to quietly weird introspection is just right. Just as with the fever dream in Antiviral, the bizarre body horror of facial distortion is used sparingly but effectively; Tanya’s melted visage, symbol of the identity struggle between her and Colin, just looks hideous and gorgeous. It’s all the more impressive for being almost completely done with practical effects. The whole film looks gorgeous, shot in a chilly style that seems to keep us at arm’s length, passive observers, until it’s time to get visceral. And of course there’s lots of surreal trippy imagery to enjoy when things start to go horribly wrong. The performances from the two leads are fantastic. Riseborough taps into an ethereal, almost alien otherworldliness that fits an assassin who operates like a ghost, almost as if Tasya has no body or persona of her own. When we see her about to visit her family, she is repeating phrases to herself over and over, almost as if to remind herself how to make small talk, but it’s not until we see her mimicking her target’s speech patterns that it really sinks in: she was doing the same thing, but with her own speech. She’s so disconnected from herself that she has to practice how to sound like herself. Abbott has the unenviable task of playing two people at once and he does a damned fine job. As Colin, his distress is palpable when he starts to come to his senses and sees what Tasya is doing to him. He’s a pretty unlikeable character, but Abbott makes him sympathetic enough that, appropriately, it’s as hard to tell who you’re rooting for as it is to tell who has control of the body sometimes. Possessor is a brilliant mindfuck of a film, but not one that’s so impenetrable as to be impossible to follow. It’s stylish and moody, as awash with imagery and symbolism as it is with the sticky red stuff. BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES - Deleted Scenes - A Heightened World: The Look of Possessor - Identity Crisis: Bringing Possessor to Life - The Joy of Practical: The Effects of Possessor - Short Film 'Please Speak Continuously and Describe Your Experiences as They Come to You' by Brandon Cronenberg Cert: 18 Runtime: 102 mins Amazon Blu-ray: https://amzn.to/3lJWoQp iTunes pre-order: https://apple.co/39G4Uh6 Signature Entertainment presents Possessor on Digital HD 1 February and Blu-ray and DVD 8 February 2021   |
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