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In the 1981 film Possession, the main character, Mark (played by Sam Neill), is driven by a primary goal that shifts from a desperate attempt to save his marriage to an obsessive, destructive need to completely possess his wife, Anna (Isabelle Adjani), both physically and spiritually.
Mark’s goal is initially reactive: he returns home from a mysterious espionage mission to discover his wife wants a divorce. His objective follows a tragic evolution:
Mark faces a series of increasingly surreal and violent obstacles that prevent him from achieving a stable relationship or even a clear understanding of reality.
The most immediate obstacle is Anna herself. She is not merely "having an affair"; she is in the midst of a violent psychological and spiritual transformation. She refuses to give Mark the closure or information he seeks, meeting his pleas with erratic behavior, self-harm (cutting her neck with an electric knife), and domestic violence.
Mark’s initial investigation leads him to Heinrich, a "New Age" pseudo-intellectual who is Anna’s lover. Heinrich acts as a physical and philosophical obstacle; he is physically superior to Mark in their first confrontation (beating him severely) and represents a lifestyle of "enlightenment" and "freedom" that mocks Mark’s traditional, possessive desire for a nuclear family.
The most literal and horrifying obstacle is the tentacled, Lovecraftian monster that Anna is harboring in a derelict apartment in Kreuzberg.
Mark’s own mind is perhaps his greatest obstacle. His jealousy manifests as a "feature-length nervous breakdown." He spends days rocking in a chair, screaming, and descending into the same "possession" that afflicts Anna. His instability prevents him from making rational decisions, leading him to abandon his job and eventually his son.
The film is set in West Berlin, directly against the backdrop of the Wall. The physical divide of the city serves as a constant obstacle/metaphor for the unbridgeable gap between Mark and Anna. The presence of armed guards and the "No Man's Land" mirrors the emotional state of their marriage—a place where communication has been replaced by surveillance and hostility.
As Mark finds a "perfect" version of Anna in Helen (Bob’s schoolteacher, who looks identical to Anna but is gentle and undemanding), and Anna "births" a perfect version of Mark from the creature, the original versions of the characters become obstacles to their own doubles. The film suggests that the "real" people are too broken to exist alongside their idealized counterparts, leading to the ultimate obstacle: death. Mark cannot "win" Anna because the version of her he wants doesn't exist, and the version that does exist is committed to replacing him with a monster.
The summary states Mark becomes an 'accomplice to murder' but fails to mention that he personally kills Heinrich, a significant escalation of his character's violence.
In Possession (1981), Mark's (Sam Neill) goal evolves from a desire to reconcile with his wife Anna (Isabelle Adjani) to an obsessive need to possess her, and finally to a surrender to the surreal forces replacing them. His obstacles include Anna's erratic madness and infidelity, her lover Heinrich (whom Mark eventually murders), a tentacled creature Anna harbors, his own psychological breakdown, and the geopolitical division of the Berlin Wall. Ultimately, Mark and Anna are replaced by idealized doppelgängers.