Possessor (2020)
Directed by Brandon Cronenberg
Tasya Vos, an elite corporate assassin, uses brain-implant technology to take control of other people’s bodies to terminate high profile targets. As she sinks deeper into her latest assignment, Vos becomes trapped inside a mind that threatens to obliterate her.
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Possessor takes elements of eXistenZ and, to a lesser degree, Dead Ringers , to create a tale of identity theft and personal discovery with a twist.
The son of the body-horror maestro behind such cine-nightmares as “Scanners” and “Dead Ringers,” director Brandon Cronenberg took a tentative step in the same squirm-inducing direction with his 2012 debut, “Antiviral.”
As with her previous assignments, Vos works remotely, in headgear resembling the gynecological equipment featured in “Dead Ringers.”
Cronenberg has a keen eye for sculptural design and has made a somewhat derivative effort, combining elements from his father’s films “Videodrome,” a 1983 visionary landmark about a pirate porn station that turns people into assassins, and “Dead Ringers,” a darkly surreal 1988 tale of twins who inhabit each other’s psyches.
But Brandon Cronenberg certainly knew what he was getting into with his second feature Possessor , a psychological horror film involving body-penetrating mind-control devices, deliberately provocative gore and scientific tools that, like those horrible specula and pincers in Dead Ringers , enable violence without sacrificing a sheen of haute-design luxury.
Following up on his Fantastic Fest 2012 debut Antiviral, Possessor (Uncut) seamlessly blends the unsettling body-horror that permeated the elder Cronenberg’s early-to-mid-career work in such genre-bending classics as Dead Ringers, Videodrome, and the The Fly with the trippy technophobics of eXistenZ while carving out his own borderline psychedelic niche in an already crowded and newly resurgent genre – thanks in large part to our current cultural chaos – of the hybrid highbrow sci-fi/horrorshow.
Secret organizations and clandestine operations provide the framework which utilizes a similar perversion of objects and humanity as in the horrific Videodrome (1983).
Possessor, or Possessor Uncut as it has been confusingly retitled for US release, sees the younger director remaining in the shadow of his father, telling a tale of corporate espionage that often feels like a watered down Videodrome relocated to the boardroom.
David Cronenberg made Videodrome at the same age that Brandon is now.
The writer and director, Brandon Cronenberg, is the son of David Cronenberg, past master of icky ideas and disturbing imagery, and Possessor echoes some of the dank gloom of his 1983 Videodrome .
Cronenberg has a keen eye for sculptural design and has made a somewhat derivative effort, combining elements from his father’s films “Videodrome,” a 1983 visionary landmark about a pirate porn station that turns people into assassins, and “Dead Ringers,” a darkly surreal 1988 tale of twins who inhabit each other’s psyches.
There are numerous echoes of David Cronenberg films here, from Scanners to Videodrome to Existenz , which also featured Leigh as the head of a questionable company dealing in identity manipulation.
Every line, every character tic, every element of the frame reflects Cronenberg’s uncompromising, nihilistic vision of a near-future where every life doesn’t have intrinsic value, only an economic/market one, to borrow a phrase from Blade Runner, “either a benefit or a hazard,” except replicants don’t exist in the world of Possessor, though if they did, everyone, regardless of biological origin, would be valued - or rather devalued - similarly.
Upon completion of a task, she must undergo a series of “Blade Runner” style tests to determine if she’s fit, mentally, for the field again.
Yet, watching Possessor, I also found myself reminded of a different ultra-stylized neo-noir: Blade Runner.
“Possessor” is thoroughly of that bloodline, something that feels like it was hatched out of the mind of sci-fi pessimist Philip K. Dick (“Blade Runner”).
Instead of choreographed fight scenes and shoot-outs, the slick action that powers a more conventional mind-bender like Christopher Nolan's Inception , Cronenberg packs his movie with psychedelic detours, hallucinatory montages, graphic sex scenes, and bursts of gruesome carnage.
Instead, Cronenberg goes corporate, offering up a gory and shockingly de-glamorized take on Christopher Nolan’s “Inception”: Here, when someone wants to manipulate a business rival, they hire a specialized assassin to burrow into that person’s brain and take charge.
As the mysteries of the film unfold, you'll surely be reminded of experiences like Being John Malkovich or Inception , but rather than attempt to surprise the viewer with unexpected or complex mythos to support the concept, only minimal explanation is offered, adding a timeless element to the journey.
The science-fiction premise Cronenberg imagines here is a smart one, even if it sounds akin to Christopher Nolan’s “Inception.”
Taking a page from his father’s “Videodrome” and “eXistenZ,” as well as Christopher Nolan’s “ Inception” and the fiction of Philip K. Dick, the film is a modern nightmare in which one woman’s psyche is threatened due to her participation in an immersive identity hijacking program.
One can draw connections from this premise to films like Inception , but Cronenberg is operating on a completely different level.
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Pulling together imagery and themes explored in movies such as Ghost in the Shell and The Matrix, it envisions a retro-futuristic world (set in 2008, if you’re counting) where dubious and nefarious companies do backroom deals by jacking into the bodies of the unfortunates.
Specific to Possessor , how Tasya’s “jack-in” moment à la The Matrix takes a prosthetic of Riseborough’s figure, puddles it away like those “chocolate Easter bunny meets hot hairdryer heat” videos, and replays the same footage in reverse but with Christopher Abbott’s “double” to denote Tasya’s new vessel.
The production design, reminiscent at times of The Matrix, is transportive but the real kicker is the film’s effects.
From The Matrix to Minority Report to eXistenZ to Scanners to Fantastic Planet and hell, even stuff like The Cell , it’s a hall of mirrors that thinks it’s way more transgressive than it is.
That’s exactly what happened with Possessor , the new cyberpunk thriller by Brandon Cronenberg, and it very well might be the best adaptation of a William Gibson short story that the man never wrote, and it’s nearly neck-and-neck with The Matrix as the best film to emerge from filmmakers under his influence.
While many more contemporary films have played with the idea of using human bodies like puppets to commit criminal acts (like the underrated The Hidden from 1987 or, for a silly approximation of these themes, the insipid Stephanie Meyer title The Host , which Andrew Niccol unwisely tackled in 2013), Cronenberg creates a thing of wicked beauty with his sophomore effort, a troubling exercise which glistens with the sweat and blood of ideas strained through flesh.
He's the son of David Cronenberg, the master of body horror responsible for films such as Shivers, Videodrome , and Scanners .
The son of the body-horror maestro behind such cine-nightmares as “Scanners” and “Dead Ringers,” director Brandon Cronenberg took a tentative step in the same squirm-inducing direction with his 2012 debut, “Antiviral.”
I did like the use of a grotesque human face as a mask, however, although Cronenberg fils would have a long way to go to top the exploding head in his father’s “Scanners” (1981).
There are numerous echoes of David Cronenberg films here, from Scanners to Videodrome to Existenz , which also featured Leigh as the head of a questionable company dealing in identity manipulation.
Canadian icon David Cronenberg is best known for such body-horror standouts as The Fly, Videodrome and Scanners – all made when his son Brandon was just a few years old, by the way.
Imagine if Scanners got into the Brundlepod with John Wick, and you’ve got an idea of how hard this movie goes.
Assuming a world in which such technology exists, he doesn’t imagine a Machiavellian contemporary “Manchurian Candidate” scenario, in which malefactors remote-control political leaders, or a deeper dive into “Being John Malkovich” territory, where super fans (like the ones in “Antiviral”) can “become” the celebrities they idolize.
As the mysteries of the film unfold, you'll surely be reminded of experiences like Being John Malkovich or Inception , but rather than attempt to surprise the viewer with unexpected or complex mythos to support the concept, only minimal explanation is offered, adding a timeless element to the journey.
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Cronenberg wisely steers clear of definite answers regarding the exact parameters of two distinct possibilities, the organization run by Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Girder (who, of course, starred in David Cronenberg’s 1999 title eXistenZ) and the data mine corporation of Sean Bean.
Tasya has gotten to the point that when she emerges from each mission, she can’t always untangle her true identity from the one she just inhabited — as we see in a debriefing session with operations supervisor Girder (Jennifer Jason Leigh, upping the ante on Cronenberg Sr.’s virtual-reality thriller “ExistenZ”).
After nearly botching one mission, Tasya is soon sent on another by her handler, Girder (Jennifer Jason Leigh, eXistenZ).
While his latest, Possessor , might belong in the same conversation as eXistenZ , Cronenberg once again proves himself as one to watch with a heady sci-fi film that brings serious levels of violence and gore.
Hell, David Cronenberg's son even cast Jennifer Jason Leigh, driving home his film's echoes of Dad's eXistenZ .
Veteran actor Leigh (who was also in David Cronenberg's eXistenZ ) matches Riseborough, providing a bit of sinister backstory for the assassin business with nothing more than the tone of her voice.
The malfunction leads to an engrossing drama as these two souls compete in a war neither is prepared for — think All of Me (1984) but instead of pratfalls and physical comedy you get splatter and physical violence.