POSSESSION
US, 2009, 85 minutes. Colour.
Sarah Michelle Gellar, Lee Pace, Michael Landes.
Directed by Joel Bergvall and Simon Sandquist.
Possession is based on a Korean film, Addiction.
It is not a horror film as such, rather something of a variation on a ghost story theme. The film focuses on Sarah Michelle Gellar, a successful lawyer, one year married to her husband Ryan. However, his brother, released from prison, stays with them and is a continual menace. This brother, Roman, is brutal to his girlfriend.
Roman overhears Jess complaining about him and moves out. Jess tells her husband and his goes in pursuit of his brother – in fog over the Golden Gate Bridge, they crash and both of them are in critical condition. The husband is on life support and does not seem to be able to survive. The brother regains his life – but, the visuals of the film suggest some kind of transference, he becomes his brother, Jess’s husband. She does not believe in the transformation until he persuades her with memories of intimate scenes between them. Ultimately, she discovers that he has her files and has learnt all the details which he has repeated. The complication is that she is pregnant. When he attacks her, she kills him. While carrying the baby, she visits her husband and decides to keep him on life support.
1. A human drama? Romance? The touches of the supernatural? The ultimate rational explanations? The title and its implications?
2. The San Francisco settings, the world of the law, affluent homes, the sculptor? Poorer apartments? The Golden Gate Bridge and the fog? Realistic atmosphere?
3. The portrait of Jess, at work, coming home, her relationship with her husband, his gift, her forgetting the wedding anniversary? The ease between the two, at home, the sculpture? The letters, her treasuring the memories? The flashback to their seeing the elderly couple? Her antipathy towards Roman? His behaviour in the house?
4. Her complaining about Roman, his leaving, the two vehicles, the Golden Gate Bridge? The accident, the bodies on the road? In hospital? Life support systems? The explanations of the doctor? Her grief?
5. Roman coming to life, seemingly transformed into Ryan? The suggestions of touch, of the meeting of blood?
6. Roman, his being Ryan, changing his personality, saying all the right things, his knowledge of the past, Jess and her initial suspicions? Her testing him? Her watching him with Casey? Working in the garden? The audience believing in the transformation? The intimacy, the pregnancy? Her discovering the cache of letters? Her disillusionment? Her aggressiveness towards Roman? His attack, hitting her, revealing the truth? His attack, her killing him?
7. Casey, her relationship with Roman, his brutal treatment? Her coming to the hospital? Coming to confront Roman, her disbelief? Her disappearance – did Roman kill her?
8. Ryan, his vegetative state? Jess and her keeping the baby, keeping him on life support – her hopes?
9. The variation on the possession theme? Low key? Characters stronger than usual?
