Possessor is the latest and second full-length film by Brandon Cronenberg, son of the celebrated director David Cronenberg (whose name should be familiar to most hessians). This kinship deserves mention more than as a curiosity, since profound similarities are to be found between Brandon’s work and the iconic output of his father. Beyond the most immediate resemblances, such as the obsession with viscerality and body horror, the fundamental resonance is the clinical lens adopted by both filmmakers, almost more befitting of an autopsy medical examiner than an artist or “entertainer” looking to elicit emotional responses from a crowd. As in many of his father’s films, Brandon creates a world completely overtaken by a mechanicization extending to the mind and its innermost recesses; in such an environment, the flesh, despite being constantly and necessarily with us, almost becomes a foreign object that arouses a detached fascination, creating a troubled relationship bound for neuroticism and explosive ruptures.
Possessor‘s starting point is a standard sci-fi premise: in an alternate 2008, technology enables individuals to transfer their consciousness to other bodies in order to control them; this is exploited by assassins hired by companies to carry their hits through the possession of unwitting third parties. Protagonist Tasya Vos (Andrea Riseborough) is one such assassin, her latest assignment being the murder of a wealthy CEO through the possession of his son-in-law Colin Tate (Christopher Abbott). The procedure turns out more problematic than usual when Colin proves capable of partly resisting the intruder’s control. This tension provides the central narrative drive of the film’s second half, leading to psychedelic montages of the psychic battle between the two.
The film opts for a mysterious approach that only reveals the strictly necessary, forcing the viewer to fully immerse himself in the experience looking for all sorts of subtle indications. The motivations and feelings of the main character are obscured by her seemingly unemotional disposition in accordance with the equally cold surroundings and borderline sociophatic social environment. This might prove unappealing for viewers looking for a more explicitly human presence, but it should be familiar to those accustomed to the films of the director’s father (or even his own full-length debut, Antiviral). Besides, such an approach is naturally demanded by the dystopian setting characterized by the total technical instrumentalization of every human attribute, including consciousness itself, a state of humanity in line with the predictions of Ernst Jünger. It becomes clear that Tasya’s constant dive into foreign bodies and the impersonation of different individuals has brought a depersonalization effect, not only bringing about an alienation from the body but also from the mind. The final consumation of this process is – without giving away too much – the crux of her character arch.
Like in the works of Kafka, the world that Brandon presents is simultaneously familiar and tinted by a compelling aura of uncanny aestheticization. The scenes depicting Colin’s “data mining” job routine on a hive-like workplace are not very far from the experience of the avereage denizen of our day, yet carry an almost ritualistic dimension. Such sights of a completely sterilized and technicized environment, where minds are plugged into machines through implants, are interspersed with bursts of gory violence on par with exploitation cinema, but as dispassioned and clinically represented as everything else that falls under Brandon’s canvas. This skillful meeting makes Possessor one of the worthiest works of horror cinema in recent memory, an automatic recommendation for fans of the truly original and audacious visions that can sporadically come from that camp.
