Possession (1981)

Product Information

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.67:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Andrzej Zulawski's Possession arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Second Sight Films. Mondo Vision's Blu-ray release of Possession uses as foundation the same recent restoration of the film which British distributors Second Sight Films accessed when they prepared their Blu-ray release for the UK market. However, the high-definition transfers the two releases use are not identical. Here, it was a very demanding job, we saw the movie about fifty times before validation of the rights, but the result is, it seems, lived up to expectations. Many thanks to Sébastien and Mathieu for their work.

It's finally happened: my extremely rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew has paid off. Instead of struggling to haltingly The film was first restored a few years ago by Zulawski himself but the master had colorometry problems. Problems fixed, for the majority, on previous BLURAY releases abroad. should be the beginning. So not to pun horribly given the kind of Satanic element of The Possession, but as What ensues is a perfectly rote example of exactly what you'd expect about any film that follows in the formidable wake

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folktales that caught my eye was one that none other than Leonard Bernstein adapted into a ballet in the mid-

In the scene shown, the blue tone present in some transfers of the film (and in the "before" image which was adjusted to show those same colours) is specific to the transfer itself. It was not present in the original film. A most engaging interview with composer Andrzej Korzynski, who recalls meeting director Zulawski at primary school ("we sat on the same bench and made trouble together") and his subsequent seven-film collaboration with him. Tantalising clips from three of Zulawski's films are included, with particular focus on his banned and nearly lost science fiction epic On the Silver Globe. A brief but informative look at the work of Polish film poster artists Barbara Baranowska, aka Basha, who designed the poster for Possession that features on the cover of this very Blu-ray disc. This history is provided by Daniel Bird's soberly delivered but well-written narration, illustrated by the often striking posters themselves. really weird stuff. That's it. Mom and Dad forget they're divorced and attempt to figure out what's going on, at Slarek is still reeling from POSSESSION, Andrzej Zulawski's extraordinary 1981 collision of relationship drama, politics, horror, and a whole lot more, released this week on a splendidly featured Blu-ray by Second Sight.No one has claimed with certainty that Second Sight was delivered the finished SDR-graded 4K master for Possession, in which case the latitude for corrections would indeed be limited. Why exclude the possibility they got a log scale master on top of which they could make sensible grading choices? I would assume that the 4K scan and most restoration work were performed with the widest possible latitude (and then grading being the last step) and as such, these materials should be readily available. part of Jewish "ghost stories" and are at least somewhat related to very famous myths like that of the succubus Lilith. More From Mondo Vision - a collection of trailers for Mondo Vision's DVD releases of Andrzej Zulawski's La femme publique, L'important c'est d'aimer, L'amour braque, and Szamanka. In French and Polish, with imposed English subtitles where necessary. (11 min). Director Andrzej Zulawski, most ably prompted by Daniel Bird, comments in impeccable English on all aspects of the film, including how the project developed, his specific reasons for shooting in Berlin, casting the lead roles, the use of specific colours, the doppelgänger motif, working with the crew, the autobiographical elements, and a whole lot more. It's a little unsettling to discover that the man his own partner left him for had the same name as his on-screen equivalent and that Mark's later assault on him was driven primarily by Zulawski's hatred of the man. Specific scenes are explored in detail and there's even the occasional bit of lively verbal sparring between the two when Zulawski disagrees with a point Bird is making. Surprisingly, perhaps, Bird doesn't challenge Zulawski when he claims that the Steadicam wasn't yet invented when they shot the film, given it's prominent use three years earlier in John Carpenter's seminal Halloween. Perhaps my favourite Zulawski quote of all here comes late in the commentary when he complains that "most of the good films have disappeared because they don't want to bite any more." Absolutely. A first-rate extra. to right formulation. My wife and I first became aware of this because Hebrew has several letters which take different

The generic, unlike previous video releases, was made from the original negative so it's beautiful anyway. So it seems as if like LCQF essentially did what Second Sight is going to do, which can still be as accurate as anything the director would have or could approve. Yes. Our recent post about the colour-correction of POSSESSION has prompted a lot of interesting discussion here and elsewhere. Our post facility have been working with director Andrzej Zulawski on a shot-by-shot basis, so here's some more detail; somewhat unwieldy Shloyme-Zanvl). Dybbuks are malevolent spirits which possess people and they have long been aleft of their attendant Hebrew word, since the left side is the end of the word. On the menu options we were seventies, choreographed by his longtime collaborator Jerome Robbins. The ballet was based on a 1914 play in Yiddish Also, there are tradeoffs to making tweaks like that in SDR, which the 4K master of possession is. While the Mondo/SS discs have less blown out highlights, as a result of that change the whole scene is much darker - it looks like he is standing in a dim room instead of a room illuminated by natural light. Looking at the bright reflection on the desk near the window, the tamed highlights dim-room look doesnt make as much logical sense honestly. Thus its not an error, but a tradeoff. HDR on the other hand you can make tweaks like that with minimal side effects (other than seeing more of what was behind the highlight, which has created issues for some 4K transfers). This film can confuse those who have never experienced life on the other side of the Iron Curtain. This is where Andrzej Zulawski, who directed it, came from. He started his career in Communist Poland where his early films were censored and banned by the red apparatchiks because they did not like their subversive tone. In the early '70s, the frustrated Zulawski moved to France where he has been living ever since. Possession is the Polish director's fourth feature film and without a shadow of a doubt his most disturbing one. Andrzej Zulawski Interview - in this video interview, director Andrzej Zulawski recalls how Possession came to exist and discusses the socio-political climate in Poland at the time when the film was made. The Polish director also discusses the unique qualities of the main characters in Possession, Isabelle Adjani's legendary performance, and the film's visual style. The interview was produced by Jerome Wybon for TF1 Video in 2009. It also appears on the Region-B release of Possession. In French, with optional English subtitles. (36 min).

Excluding some light banding that I spotted (the most obvious example being early into the film, in the sequence where Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani's characters meet in front of the apartment complex) as well as some low noise that occasionally pops up, the technical presentation of this once quite controversial film is indeed very impressive. It is also quite the revelation. There is an entirely new color scheme that apparently reinstates the type of look Andrzej Zulawski desired and all visual effects, most notably solarization enhancements, that were added to the U.S. re-cut version of the film are now completely removed. Needless to say, if you are familiar only with the U.S. re-cut version of Possession, more than likely you are going to be quite surprised by the look of this new Director's Cut of the film. really are talking about, I am able to offer translations of the menu options on The Possession, which response to seeing things like "Based on a true story", but The Possession is so far fetched and outlandish thatmagically transform into English (see the last screenshot accompanying this review). Well, okay, confession time: I can French producer Christian Ferry concisely recalls how he first worked with Zulawski and the films on which they collaborated. interesting mystical writings that populate Jewish tradition to further my own self-directed education. Since I was also say the devil's in the details. Or, perhaps, maybe the devil made the disc author do it. Either way it's a fitting metaphor