Possession (1981), Andrzej Żulawski
Doppelgänger is the German word for a paranormal double of a living person (‘double walker’), often representing evil or misfortunate. Traditionally, doppelgängers have supernatural origins but in contemporary vernacular, the word is commonly used for a look-alike of a person (i.e. an imposter).
For the concept of Doppelgänger, I re-watched the 1981 German horror film, Possession, by Polish director Andrzej Żulawski. Possession follows the estranged relationship between international spy, Mark, and his dysphoric wife, Anna. She begins to show increasingly disturbing behavior after she requests a divorce and leaves him. As the result of an affair, the couple’s marriage begins to disintegrate. Possession relates to my theme because there are doppelgängers of Mark and Anna who appear in the film. Throughout the film, we see that they both nurture relationships with “idealized” versions of each other. Mark has an affair with his son’s teacher, who is Anna’s doppelgänger (played by the same actress). She is an angelic, compliant version of Anna. On the other hand, Anna nurtures a relationship with a demon, who is a malicious version of Mark.
The film is purposefully ambiguous and doesn’t seem to have a coherent plot, but it focuses on the characters’ collective descent into insanity than it does on telling a cohesive story. Beneath all the craziness, the film tells a story about the domestic disintegration of a marriage. I find it connects well to the concept of my project because I want to depict doppelgängers as both ‘idealized’ and ‘evil’ versions of people. Humans are, in essence, multifaceted, and to me represent the moon because they can have a ‘light’ and ‘dark’ side while ultimately makes them whole. I think the concept of doppelgänger is fascinating because it presents another way of looking at somebody through their “double.” It is inspiring towards my project because of its removal from reality: the supernatural elements of Possession show the monstrosity and fragility of the human form, with the characters no longer in possession of their own flesh.
