Where was the ‘Possession’ subway scene filmed?
For a while now, the subway sequence from Andrzej Żuławski’s 1981 film Possession has been co-opted by chronically online social media users as meme fodder or as part of ‘female rage’ edits, placing scenes of Isabelle Adjani writhing around on the floor alongside the likes of Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl or Natalie Portman in Black Swan.
You can hardly blame these users for identifying with Adjani’s character in a moment of pure crazed mania, though; it’s one of the most visceral depictions of a complete loss of control. In a blue dress, she flails around and smashes against the wall with utter disregard for social norms.
In a world where, even now, women are expected to be dignified, labelled as ‘too emotional’, and criticised for their every move, the image of a woman thrashing about in a public space, screaming, tossing groceries, and eventually expelling liquid from various orifices, is an act of complete rebellion. It’s no wonder so many women have a strange appreciation for the scene.
It’s a surreal sequence, with Adjani’s Anna appearing to have a miscarriage, as you can see that unidentifiable liquids are seeping from her skirt, although it’s unclear just what exactly is going on. Perhaps it’s a more metaphorical miscarriage, her body purging everything as she battles through a violent divorce, but regardless, it’s traumatic, and unsurprisingly, Adjani found the experience of playing Anna equally as scarring.
The actor reportedly attempted suicide after starring in Possession, too emotionally drained from shooting scenes as intense as this. It’s a shame, in a way, that the subway sequence, so searingly painful to witness, and you can only imagine how it must’ve felt to act it, has been reduced to internet infamy, often sped up and placed behind a caption about not getting a text back.
It’s one of many emotional high points in the film, and its public setting of a subway, wherein Anna simply cannot hold in this anger, this physical expulsion, until she gets home, makes it even more impactful. But where was it filmed? If you’re a big fan of the movie, which is truly the most harrowing tale of divorce ever put to film, then why not visit the very spot where Adjani let all inhibitions go and delivered the performance of a lifetime?
The backdrop of a divided Berlin is vital to the movie’s depiction of a husband and wife tearing each other apart, with the whole film shot on location, mostly in Kreuzberg. For the subway scene, we’re taken to the Platz der Luftbrücke Berlin U-Bahn station, where Anna uses the escalator, which is now gone, and walks through the tunnel where she appears possessed.
Hundreds of people walk through that tunnel every day, unaware that it was once the site of Adjani’s infamous performance, a meltdown to end all onscreen meltdowns, hard to watch in all of its animalism, yet so captivating that you just can’t look away.
Perhaps there should be a plaque to commemorate the scene, which succeeds in capturing the character’s complete breakdown of sanity, giving us one of the most terrific performances of the 1980s in the process.
