Possession (1981 film) (revisited)

The strangest part about Possession remains the title. The concept of at least one of these characters being in a state of persistent mesmerization remains subtext; doppelganger idolation is plain text in comparison. Then again, the men (the stupid, stupid men) of this story insist on treating Anna like property—she’s mine, you can’t have her, and so on. Any glimpses from Anna’s perspective, meanwhile, lays bare the nightmare hellscape of the world before her, and that’s without taking Cold War Berlin, conveyed as a carcass of itself, into account. It’s silly, it’s messy, it’s disturbing, it’s beautiful, it’s masterful.

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