Forty years ago, Andrzej Zulawski’s “Possession” was released into an unprepared world. The lurid, gruesome horror story of a marriage gone terribly wrong, Zulawski’s movie was butchered by some distributors, banned in some countries, and received with a general mix of shock and scorn. In the decades since, the film’s reputation has grown exponentially – it’s now considered a veritable cult classic, and a stunning new 4K restoration from Metrograph Pictures will see it re-released in cinemas this October.
READ MORE: The Essentials: The 5 Best Andrzej Zulawski Films
If there is one single element of “Possession” that stands above all the others, then it’s the formidable, unforgettable performance of Isabelle Adjani. During the ’70s and ’80s, at the peak of her powers, there were few who could rival Adjani for sheer acting fearlessness; the seeming juxtaposition of her delicate doll-like beauty and her willingness to broach incredibly intense emotional ground made her into a star. She quickly became known as a specialist at playing women on the brink of mental breakdowns, able to dive deep into the thorniest of psychological territory and express tremendously complex feelings with precision, empathy, and mesmerizing charisma. Fluent in three languages, she’s worked prodigiously in both Hollywood and her native France and has won more César awards than any other actress in history.
While she’s made fewer movie appearances in the last couple of decades, she isn’t done with the big screen yet – next year she’ll be directed by François Ozon in an adaptation of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s “Petra Von Kant”. For now, though, listed below are six of the best films from Adjani’s cinematic heyday:
“The Story of Adèle H” (1975)
Adjani’s first major role was as Adèle Hugo, daughter of Les Misérables author Victor Hugo, in François Truffaut’s historical drama. Set in the 1860s and based on the real Adèle’s diaries, “The Story of Adèle H” follows her as she arrives in Nova Scotia in pursuit of her ex-boyfriend Lieutenant Pinson (Bruce Robinson), a British army officer. When she eventually finds him, he gives her the cold shoulder and continues to do so throughout her relentless pursuit. With each rejection, Adèle’s already tenuous grip on her sanity grows looser. Although her actions throughout the movie, and her unwavering refusal to take Pinson’s various rebuffs for an answer, are alternately manipulative, pitiable, and frustrating, Adjani gifts Adèle a wounded nobility that means we always feel for her, however badly she’s behaving. There’s a desperate dignity underlying her refusal to be discarded, even as her unrequited love impacts further and further on her state of mind. Adèle Hugo is a hugely taxing part, especially for someone so early in their career (Truffaut initially wanted the more established Jeanne Moreau or Catharine Deneuve, but plumped for Adjani after being wowed by her performance in her breakthrough film “The Slap”). She’s almost entirely defined by her obsession with Pinson, the very definition of a one-note character, and yet Adjani finds whole worlds within that all-encompassing, operatic, one-way love affair. Her lead turn was lauded across both sides of the Atlantic, earning her first César and Academy Award Nominations – at nineteen, she became the youngest Best Actress nominee in Oscar history (a record she maintained until thirteen-year-old Keisha Castle-Hughes was nominated for 2003’s “Whale Rider”).
“The Tenant” (1976)
The third entry in Roman Polanski’s Apartment Trilogy (after 1965’s “Repulsion” and 1968’s “Rosemary’s Baby”), sees the director star as Trelkovsky, a meek man who rents an apartment in Paris after the previous tenant, Simone, leaps out the window and suffers mortal injuries. Before she dies, however, he visits her in hospital, which is where he meets Simone’s friend Stella (Adjani), and the two begin a relationship. The rest of the film follows Trelkovsky’s paranoia-induced mental degeneration, as he becomes convinced that the other residents of his building are attempting to manipulate him into taking the same leap of death as his predecessor. “The Tenant” was the first feature Adjani made that was shot predominantly in the English language. Though Polanski’s acting ability is rather limited, he is bolstered by a glittering roster of established international co-stars (among them, the Americans Melvyn Douglas, Shelley Winters, and Jo Van Fleet and the French Claude Dauphin, Lila Kedrova, and Martin Bresson), and the twenty-year-old Adjani more than proves herself alongside them. Whilst her part is relatively minor, whenever she’s on-screen it’s near impossible to look at anybody else; the strength of her presence, even at her young age, is indomitable. “The Tenant” is also notable for being the first of several renowned horror movies in which Adjani would star; although she isn’t asked to approach anywhere near the level of extremity that she reaches in “Possession”, there’s an appealing strangeness to her performance here that’s suggestive of the direction she’d take later in her career.