Ep 9: Possession (with Carrsan T. Morrissey)

On episode 9 were finally covering one of Patrizia's favourites- Andrzej Żuławski's singular 1981 opus Possession. 

To discuss it they are joined by their transatlantic twin , the lovely Carrsan T. Morrissey! 

Carrsan T. Morrissey (She/Her) was born and raised in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Dubbed "the Queen of Iowa Horror," she is a celebrated independent filmmaker, as well as an actor and author. Her production house, Matriarch Films, is known for intense and cerebral horror shorts and features, typically focused on and starring performers from the LGBTQIA+ community. Her films have been viewed over 2.4 million times online, and her novel "Old Wounds" debuted as one of the Top 25 best-selling new LGBT Horror Novels on Amazon, remaining on the Top 100 list for several weeks afterwards. Her newest work can be found at vimeo.com/matriarchfilms. 

Carrsan was a fantastic guest so please check it out! 

Distort 2: Dead Among the Trees - https://watch.foundtv.com/show-details/distort-2-the-dead-among-the-trees

Carrsan's insta- https://www.instagram.com/sappho_seraphim?igsh=MWV1eHluOHNmMDlhdQ==

To quote the end credits of Bleeders- 

In a world sick with hatred love is punk

Protect trans lives

Free Palestine

F*ck ICE  

Thank you for listening ❤️❤️❤️

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I uh just to say before we get into a great episode with the friend of the podcast and former guest Richard Waters and you may be disjoint to Dead Among the Trees is available to watch and watch thatfantv.com. You can watch it for free with ads, or you can sign up for a package and watch it without ads. I have a small cameo in it, and you can watch the original film there as well. So you can check out the link in the description of this episode. Welcome to the show, Carson. Thank you so much for coming on.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

I'm very delighted to have you on. I mean, what I think is cool is that like I've had, you know, obviously Louise Ward on here. On this episode, I feel like I'm talking to someone whose work is still kind of really bubbling under and hasn't yet ascended into the kind of like the trans femme genre canon so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Yeah, God willing someday, but right now I'm also uh I'm kind of enjoying the the underground thing at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

So hell yeah. So I actually discovered you because I was looking, I ended up to kind of like just scrolling through letterboxed. I heard about Marcus Koch's movie Rot, and then I saw that you were one of the reviews that was on there. And I think honestly it was the case that I saw you had the trans flag in your bio and then went and was like, there is another T-girl who's obsessed with this sick or interested in this sick movie. I think you'd seen it at a like a created screening or something, but I just watched it on YouTube. Uh I will say, if anyone who hasn't seen it, if you like kind of like a punk rock necromantic riff where someone wears a skinny puppy t-shirt, which like is always gonna be of interest to me, um, then you it's worth checking out. But I was like, I was interested, and then through looking at your letterbooks, it was a case that you know I wanted to kind of seek out your work and thought, you know, you're interesting. Also, I have joked to a few of my girlfriends that you do seem to be like the transatlantic version of me because we both have blue hair, mine is nice and the same kind of flick. And I showed one of my girlfriends a picture of you when you were doing a presentation somewhere and you were wearing a possession t-shirt, and that's which lit I am today. I'm wearing uh a Japanese one that my friend Dom got me.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Oh, that's fucking dope, actually. Oh my god, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

It's not a Japanese company, but it's like they do um yeah, they did like a few Japanese type versions of uh of movie posters. Um but yeah, I checked out your work, then eventually today. I watched Bleeders and I watched The Salvages, but like would you like to introduce yourself first? Well, introduce yourself and your work because you've directed a few features, you've directed a load of shorts, and you also have uh a novel that you wrote as well.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Yeah, so uh my name is Carson T. Morsi. I live in uh Cedar Falls, Iowa, in the United States. Iowa is a pretty rural state, but like it's kind of a weird little mix of like tiny little cities and towns just surrounded by cornfields. But it's it's a nice place, uh very conservative state, uh, but with you know pockets of sanity here and there. And also just kind of a fun place to make horror because it is so it's it's sort of the big wide open area that that inspires me. I've been making movies since I was in sixth grade-ish. It's just sort of been my passion my entire life. I remember I listened to your last interview with Louise, and you talked about like filmmaking as a compulsion. Um, and I I completely feel that because it is just like once once I figured out it was something I could do and something I enjoyed, I just haven't been able to stop doing it, and nor would I want to, but it's my favorite thing. And, you know, I'm I'm transgender. I came out publicly a couple of years back, but you know, have been slowly on my gender journey really since I was in my early 20s. And, you know, making movies as a trans femme filmmaker in Iowa in the United States right now is definitely an interesting thing. Um and it's it's one of those things where like I didn't get into filmmaking to make like, I guess you would say like political or social films, but now the art has become so inherently that that it's become just part of what I enjoy. Because I am a person who's very into like social justice and all of those things. And so even though my movies are really fucked up and depressing and often just feature like terrible people doing terrible things, it's still kind of cool to highlight my community and the people in it and the cool artists that are around doing this kind of fucked up stuff. But I love extreme horror, I love uh like exploitation films, grindhouse, that sort of thing. That's sort of what I I came up on. And uh in particular, obviously queer horror, uh, because I I just think queer people make the coolest horror films a lot of the time.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Um absolutely agreed, yeah, 100%, of course. I mean, it what about kind of like I I've seen a bit in kind of your work of like, and this is obviously like because of my kind of interest or like my taste for that kind of cinema. I see a little bit of kind of like Gaspar Noé, of like the new French extremity, a little bit kind of definitely I think you know, any kind of like somebody working in transgressive queer art is also gonna, you know, kind of have the spirit of like Greg Iraqi and and people like that as well. But I it it's funny because you you touched upon you mentioned about what it's like to be a trans filmmaker making movies in Iowa right now, and like it I it was a it's a case of glad you said it because like I currently as much as I would love to am not entering the United States for at least the next few years because I refuse to say that I'm a man in order to go, even though my passport says F, I refuse to go through um through the security and and and you know I find it extremely frightening, but I think an interesting thing, and I watched The Salvages today and I watched Bleeders, I love both of them. But what I think is interesting about your work is and and something that we can talk about in general, is I think that like pressing queer art sates me right now. And I think that I, you know, obviously I'm a huge lover of Louise's work, but also, you know, I just finished um Eva Josie Clemens book, Persona. I don't know if you've read that.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

I haven't, I uh I ordered a copy, and as soon as I I get it, I'm going to because I love her work as well. But yeah, I mean Louise is literally one of my biggest idols right now. I think that her work is fucking amazing, and everything that that whole group is doing is just like mind-blowing work. Oh, it's incredible. So essential. Like, just it's it's so fucking brilliant. I never thought I'd see a movie like Castration movie in a theater. And it's yeah, I lit a fire under my ass to be like, okay, well, like if other people are doing this, I can do this. Like this this kind of work, you know.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yeah, have you submitted your work or are been in contact with the Trans Image Trans Experience Festival that has been going for two years in Dublin?

SPEAKER_02 7:28

I have not. I just heard about it for the first time actually.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Louise was here and Afa as well, and you shout out Louise and Afa and Milo and Henry from who made Puppy Girl. Like it was a really amazing time, and it was like it just felt like on the Sunday night, it was like I said to Louise, I was like, Oh, it feels like the end of summer camp, like saying goodbye to my friends that I made this weekend. And it's it's what like what you said, like castration the castration movie films have led me down to finding these other directors who have been involved as actors, like Avalon Fast movie Honeycomb, and her new movie Camp, and then her new new movie Drinking and Driving, I haven't seen yet. But you know, there's like Avalon, Vera, and Alice, and just so many other, like just great filmmakers who are involved as actors that get involved in the project. It's really kind of been like a great kind of way to point me towards different kind of sections of the underground that I haven't engaged with yet.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

I was just gonna say, kind of going back to something you you mentioned earlier about like my films and and French New Extremity. Like, I definitely consider myself a student of French New Extremity generally. Like that was sort of the genre that I first watched that got me interested in extreme horror. It's sort of the aesthetic I find myself coming back to. So like Gaspar Noé, uh, and and also like films like Martyrs in uh interior, all the high tension, all of them. So a little bit of Lars von Trier, even though he's a bastard, but like his camera work still speaks to me a lot. But I do think that's the thing with this like trans underground movement that's happening right now is that like it's this new extreme, not even necessarily extreme horror, but certainly extreme cinema movement. And it's just such a fucking cool time to be alive and to see this and to be like, oh shit, like we're taking this kind of traditionally almost hyper masculine genre and completely turning it on its head. And there's a lot of like cis women filmmakers that are doing really sh really cool shit right now, too.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

It's just such an interesting phenomenon that has just been so cool to see.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

I came away from two weekends ago and I said like trans pervert cinema is in good health. Like I saw for like to see over the festival weekend so many five-star bangers is just unreal. And like there was a short, like I can't remember the name of the director right now, but like I Can Be Killed, which is like a trans mask version of like American guinea pig, or or yeah, like like stuff that's really incredible. And like for me, it's been like it's been so cool because the main things I've written about are extreme horror and trans cinema as much as and and a few years ago it felt like trans cinema, what is it? And now it's like we can still argue the semantics of what is a trans film, and and maybe trying to categorize trans cinema, you know, you risk flattening things or it risks being kind of reductive to do that, but at the same time, for argument's sake, if we take a notion of a trans cinema, the fact that that is something that's so so vibrant now, and also I'm seeing like great stuff, trans masculine filmmakers, non-binary people, like you know, all of this. But what I like about I love about your work is, and it's you know, I can compare this with like writers like Gretchen Falcon Martin or Alison Rumfort, people like that as well. But like there is a bleakness to them, but like in the savages in particular, so the savages is Carson's movie that's a sapphic rape reven religious rape revenge epic against the background of the apocalypse, so of course I was gonna love it. But what I I find kind of inspiring about a lot of a lot of these these works is this feeling of like is this feeling of resilience, this feeling of like and and in the savages it's like you wish in some ways that you would met this person you fall in love with in not the end of the world, but that's what like that's what trans love feels in the area. I I know in that film it's a two cis girls, but that's what trans and queer love feels like right now is like you know, loving people while the world is on fire, and you can be c clutching people because it's so important to you, and so it's like that's why with your work it's it's grim, but there's something that I feel is really positive to that. I mean it it's like the scene in the scene in the first castration movie where um Ifa's character Adeline is on the phone to traps. Yeah, and I think that scene's key to me because it's like she says to Adeline, she's like, you know, we just keep going, like this is what queer people do. And I I think that's a really kind of inspiring thing. Agreed.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Yeah, and like you know, it was the same with bleeders, where like even though Iris is a character who's obviously very morally dubious, it's like she's still a survivor, and it's not really about whether she's a good person or a bad person, it's just about like this is what this person needs to do to keep living. And you know, that's that's I'm more interested in that than like morality plays, you know. There's a lot of queer media out there, and you know, not this is not meant to be shady because there's a lot of great queer media like this, but like there is a lot of queer media that you know shows us at our best and kind of angelizes us, and like, oh, we're so inspiring, and like that's that's great, but I do think that we deserve complex stories too. We deserve stories about just like real shit and real people and what it's like on the ground in the dirt and in the margins. And that's always been more interesting to me, regardless of who the story is about. But especially with what I'm writing and four queer people, that's just what interests me.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

So with bleeders, I really loved it. Was it at all influenced by kind of like I saw a bit of Joe Bigos' Bliss in there? Obviously, there's things as well, like the addiction that have used kind of vampirism as a I don't even think it's a metaphor for addiction in this case.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

Yeah, it's literally vampirism is addiction. Um, Bliss was definitely one of the influences. Um there was a lot, you know, it it's sort of a pastiche of a lot of things that I've seen in the last five years that I loved. But uh yeah, Bliss and obviously a bit of castration movie and uh neon demon, a little bit with like some of the club scenes, uh even that kind of like just kind of a cold new French extremity feel to some of the scenes in Iris' apartment. Um, you know, it it's sort of a movie that I made to try to capture a really specific aesthetic, which I'm really proud of, you know, because like we're shooting in like just like a town where people live and it's this nice little college town. So it's like I had to find all the like most derelict looking outdoor spaces to kind of get this like industrial apocalyptic vibe that we we went for. Um and thankfully it was really cold, so we had all the like big steamy pipes and all the cool shit that makes it look extra grimy. But you know, yeah, that was there were a lot of things that really influenced the visuals of that movie.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

It it felt that the kind of like opening extended sequence of I'm I'm terrible with character names, but I forget the main character's name in that film.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Uh Iris is her name.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Iris, yeah. The extended sequence of her kind of like on her bed starting to fiend for blood and wanting to bite herself. It it reminded me of like the long takes incastration movie where you see traps go to the toilet, shoot estrogen, like it felt it it gave me that kind of vibe. But what I loved about it was is that one of the things I love in films is when like it dunks you into a world kind of in media res and doesn't overexplain, or it's just kind of like a slice of life of like you are in this moment, but it also felt like the world was like so well defined conceptually. Like, is there is the idea that you would exp wanna do more stuff in this world and not even saying expand the short, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Yeah, I I actually do that with a lot of my work, you know, not a not enough of it is really public yet to to be super obvious, which is something I'm working on. But I I do tend to I kind of have three current different little mythos worlds, if you will, that I sort of write in. Um, where there's kind of the the Skyquake apocalypse thing with like the salvages and some other films I've made, like the Tower Um Bleeders and my other short film of the Flesh sort of take place in this like vampire apocalypse bad vibe. Oh, and Conqueror Worm, which is another one that I made. So yeah, rather than like another sequel to Bleaters, I think it'll be more of like an expansion on the world it takes place in, you know, because I I don't really like to hold myself too hard to any particular storyline or canon. Um, it's more like each new project sort of takes what was good about the old one and then builds off of that.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

So yeah. Can I ask, by the way, and I make up, but the guy, the dealer who she sleeps with.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Oh, uh yeah, my friend Mickey, yeah. You see, plays Cassius. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Yeah, just absolute T-boy folk boy vibes, immaculate. I would like to.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

We joked about a lot, actually, finding his character, you know, because he's he's a fucking phenomenal actor, also a great filmmaker. Uh he's working on some things right now that are gonna be really, really cool, really cool trans cinema. And you know, we we did think about his character because even I remember he called me earlier on, like when he first got the script, and kind of asked like if I pictured the character coming across more as a trans guy or just as like just a cis just guy. And I I said like I I wanted to lean into the transness of this movie because really every character that speaks, I think, with a couple of small exceptions, is a trans person or at least a queer person. So, you know, it I I I didn't want to shy away from that. And you know, like if you look, there's like there's testosterone on the desk with the bottles of Iker and the the weed and all the other shit that's in it. Like he he dressed that whole room. It's kind of a shame you don't see all of it in the movie, but it just didn't work with the flow of it. But like he really did a great job set designing that room to to seem like somebody who maybe has their shit a little bit more together than Iris does, but is also still just kind of in the in the dirt with everybody else in this particular fucked up world. Um but yeah, he's he's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Oh, amazing. So Iker in the world of the film is a drug that uh satiates that the addiction to blood, or or it's my idea is that Iker causes the addiction to blood.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

That it's it's basically like a hearty drug that gives you like euphoria as well as other sort of like implied benefits like maybe strength or longer life or beauty or however you want to see it, but it's also slowly poisoning them, which means they need to be constantly replacing their blood supply, and they basically become vampires. So the the whole sort of bit was that I wanted to make a vampire movie where there's no real benefit to being a vampire, it just sort of happens to you, and it's it's also just a result of the world they're living in. So I what I love even like Kronos is another one I thought of, where like the the vampires on the ground in the bathroom licking blood off the floor, like it's there's nothing glamorous about it.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Yeah, I actually Kronos is one of my blind spots that's playing here in Dublin soon, so I need to check it out. But uh it's great. When we talk about, you know, I what I like about the film as well is that like you know, there's the doll patch on her jacket, which is awesome, but like it is characters who are trans or who are played by trans actors. There's not and then it's like what I like is the versatility. Like, someone was asking me recently about Tide, and it was like, Well, to qualify as a trans film, does something have to have trans characters? I was like, No, like there was like I I think there were some animations there that were by trans girls, but like you wouldn't there was nothing explicitly trans about the characters in them, and I think it's good to see like just good genre, extreme genre cinema that happens to have us. And I mean, first of all, like what is the experience like? I mean it's a big question, but like what is the experience like of of living trans in a state like Iowa right now?

SPEAKER_02 18:42

You know, I I I will say that in general I'm I've been very privileged in that, you know, at least within the film community, especially here. Like, I'm pretty well known and don't really run into anybody that has like an issue with that aspect of me. You know, it's I I go to a lot of film festivals and get a lot of hey dude, love your movies, but like it's not like people trying to be assholes, it's just people that don't know me very well or don't understand. But you know, it it's more of just the the sort of miasma of dread over you know uh the trans community again. Iowa in particular last year it was the first state in the United States to remove specifically a group from their civil rights laws because they stripped away the trans specific civil rights from their laws in Iowa. So, like, you know, it it's like we're all just kind of sitting around having a good time and waiting for the bomb to go off, is how it feels right now.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Yeah. There's very much the feeling of the salvages. I mean, was that when you were making that or or had that kind of moment yet to arrive?

SPEAKER_02 19:48

You know, it it certainly it was already in the you know, like the first Trump era had already happened by then, and obviously the evils of the United States did not start with Donald Trump by any stretch of the imagination. But you know, I I've always been fascinated by the apocalypse and by apocalyptic stories, uh especially like like apocalypse almost in terms of like societal collapse as well as like global apocalypse. It it's always been interesting to me. It's just that now it's become more relevant and personal. Since, you know, I have a lot of friends and and myself who are very scared of what's what's going on right now, and sort of being constantly told that, like, oh, everything's fine, don't be over dramatic, nothing's actually gonna happen to you. And yet we're all just sort of watching the news as these things just slowly start to happen all over the country, and like they're they're they're making a public list of all trans people, I think. In like I don't remember what state Tennessee or something like that. Like it's it's nasty, it's just this, it's just dread. It's just kind of this little underlying dread that we're all living with right now that is tiring.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

I I used to live in London and then moved back to Dublin in 2024, and then in 2025, the UK government, the Supreme Court, said that trans women aren't women. I was at the first big protest because I happened to be in London at that time. And yeah, and that feeling you said of of um you didn't you know you intended to make genre movies, and and this feeling of like I didn't originally intend for my uh stop me by the way if you feel like I'm mischaracterizing what you said, but you know, you didn't necessarily intend for your work originally to be political. It's I do feel the resentment sometimes of I I think it's about a good thing that like being trans politicized me to a huge degree in terms of getting actually involved in in an in activism that like actively politicized me. And I think that's a better thing. And like shout out to like all the trans people of colour at the minute, like me and Carson. I'm not we have to acknowledge like we have the benefits.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Oh, 100%, and like you know, especially in Iowa, I'm fully aware that blue hair and all, there are still a lot of people that are just gonna perceive me as a white man with blue hair and a punk aesthetic, which like gets you judgment. But is a safer thing to pass as. So there's still privilege, absolutely. And that's that's the thing, too, is like, how can I use that to help our agenda and to help push us into the public eye? And you know, not to use, I know agenda is such a loaded word, but like if our agenda is survival and acceptance, then that's still an agenda.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Like maybe, yeah, maybe not die. But but like I I I feel and I feel that I feel a little bit of that sometimes, but also like as a trans woman writing, you know, in the ex and podcasting in the extreme horror space, it's like, well, I am different to the majority of I don't think the fans, because I think it's just a case that there's the more in the horror sea fandom that the loudest voices have been men, rather than the them actually representing a majority of fandom. I think it's just that the the the women and you know femme voices are being empowered now. But my kind of thing is like I I just feel like it's I am going to acknowledge being a trans woman, and I am gonna be acknowledged like that this is an independent trans-owned podcast. Like I'm not doing this with any network or with any kind of backing, and like I just think it's it would be unrealistic to suggest it's anything other than that. And sometimes what I talk about willing for, you know, sometimes when I write in my writing or my podcasting, sometimes you know, I will directly talk about you know my experience of transness, and sometimes I won't, but it's still a trans person's perspective, you know. Talking about Blair Witch, our book of shadows, Blair Witch 2 is as is as important a tapestry of me, part of the tapestry of me, as you know, any you know, castration movie and these other things, you know.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Absolutely, and you know, like that that is the other side of it, is like it's not all dread, obviously. Like there is sort of a galvanizing righteous hope that comes with all of this too. Of you know, like, okay, well then I guess our community's gotta just be strong like we always have been and survive, like we always have and always will.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

So I I think in this moment as well, it's just like reinforced for me, but like now is not the time for you know, if we're I feel like for me, embracing kind of cinema that is like pervert cinema has been a part of like people are gonna call me a pervert anyway.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

So, like it's allowed me to escape from like this feeling of from respectability politics to a huge degree.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Yeah, like you know, I'm I'm as as normal as I could pretend my tastes are, I'm a polyamorous blue-haired trans woman in the Midwest in the United States. Like, I may as well just be loud and proud about the weird shit that I enjoy watching and making anyway, since 100%. Fuck it. Like they're gonna say what they're gonna say regardless. I may as well just lean into it and make cool shit.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

Like, yeah, so I mean we we've we've talked for half an hour, such is the amount that we we can talk about this stuff. But when bringing up the topic of today, possession, it it's worth saying, like, possession is a movie that I I showed you my possession tattoo. I literally have tattooed on my skin. It's a huge film for me. It's in the same way as Castration Movie Anthology 2, Best of Boat Worlds has this aspect as well, where it's so dense and in many ways hard to read that it just provides me with the ability to always go back to it. And it because it's so hard to get a handle on, like the best of boat worlds, it's a film that I had seen several times and still excited me. And that's what's going on.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

So I was gonna say full disclosure, I haven't actually seen Best of Both Worlds yet because I've been stubbornly holding out to see it in a movie theater, so I'm finally seeing it in June.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

I will I will attempt not to I will attempt not to spoil as much as possible.

SPEAKER_02 25:41

I forgive you in advance, but I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

I also saw the latest chapter, and uh it was uh A incredible, and B, I hated it because so much of the experience of the things in it were verbatim for my life that I was like, wow, it's like a film's but also to see that on screen is incredible. But yeah, with possession, you know, this is a movie that like shout out like the people who have like made this film their life's work, like Daniel Burlard and Alexandra Heller Nicholas. Like, did you get the second sidebox set that came out before Christmas?

SPEAKER_02 26:15

I did not. No, I don't own it physically yet.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

I need to, but like, you know, this because this was going to go for silly money online. I knew it was, and it already is, but it's got yeah, I'm not gonna like just glow.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

Like, I'm not gonna I'm I am crazy fucking jealous. It looks incredible.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Physical media mongue, as the kids might say.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

It's okay. I'll go get my my box from the basement and we'll go through our list of weird movies that we own later. But no, like I was just gonna say, like, when you when you asked earlier about like influences on my work, like I didn't bring up possession because I knew we were gonna talk about it. But like, if if you ask about anything that I made was possession and an influence on it, yes. Like this movie, the the first time I saw it, it was just like a visual revelation of like this is what I wanted my shit to look like and to feel like. You know, obviously it has very particular themes, but like just the aesthetics of this movie, the the the extremity, the the I don't even want to say borderline camp, the camp, but the really depressing dark camp of it is just it just speaks to my soul. So like it's one of my go-to movies that like if if people who are gonna be in one of my projects ask, like, what should I watch to prepare for this? Possession. Doesn't even really matter what the movie's actually gonna be about, but possession is one that is just so essential to me.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

And and clearly it's not just you, it's every director of a quote unquote elevated horror in the last 10 years has clearly been showing their actors' possession because so many of the performances in those films they are doing the Isabella Janian possession, it's so clear. But to say, like, this movie is like such a favorite of mine that I have not directly dealt with it in either writing in any long-form way. I've references it in relation to things, in I've referenced it in relation to best of both worlds, in fact, and I'll I'll explain why. But I I invoked it, but I've never written something long form about it, and I've not talked about it on a podcast. And I think the reason was is because it's something that I love so much, it's so intimidating to talk about, and it's like to nail down, you know, my thoughts and my feelings and what I think this movie might mean into something, into you know, one piece felt so intimidating. And also because, like I said, like people have written books, people I may have this on my flesh, but there are people who've dedicated their life to this more than I. So, with that in mind, I will preface this with by saying that I reserve the right to come back to talking about possession. I am not going to try and make this episode my definitive statement on possession. Uh, I might spend my entire, you know, parallel career talking about possession. But also, Margaret Quayley, the fucking nerve. I loved the substance, but Margaret Quayle Margaret Quayley, bitch, you have not earned what Isabella Johnny did. You do not get to step into those shoes.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

I I was, you know, I was I was gonna wait to talk about the remake, but I have opinions. I will say I did joke. I I just actually watched Possession recently, about a month ago, with my friend Mary, and we we have come to the determination that if they cast uh Sam Elliott to play Heinrich, I will cease. That would be incredible. That's the only weird thing they could do where I'd be like, alright, whatever. But I just I don't know. I just don't this movie feels unremakable to me because it was so it's so deliberate in its themes, in the the the the West Berlin of it all, the the the divorce that the director was going through when he wrote it, the it's just it's so of its time and of this one person and the people that made it. To remake it feels pointless. Like it I don't I don't understand it. I'm usually not that picky about remakes, but it's such a singular piece that I just don't understand the appeal of trying to do it again.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

100%. I I think with some of the remakes that happened in the 2000s in the remake cycle, you can clearly go, like, okay, that's an exploitable premise that you can put something you you can do again. But it felt to me like, and I actually liked Luca Guadagnino's remake of Firia quite a lot. Oh, totally. But before it it came out, I was of the I was like, why do you remake Suspiria? You can't have the same feeling as Susperia. And with possession, it's it's so much, like you said, of the time, and and it's such a unique atmosphere. Well, such an unique timbre to the both the movie and the performances. But what I wanted to ask was like, what is your experience with this movie? Like, when was the first time you saw it? And and kind of how what is your journey with the film being like? Because I've quite a long one.

SPEAKER_02 30:54

Yeah, so the the first time I watched it, I don't remember exactly when my first watch was, especially because like it's one that I had already kind of been orbiting for a long time before I actually sat down and watched it. Um, but I want to say it was around like five years ago. Like it was, it was a little later into my kind of already loving extreme horror era. But, you know, it was just one that I sat down, I watched it by myself for the first time I ever watched it. And I was just in awe because I, again, I just I saw so much of what I've been trying to accomplish as a filmmaker. Even, you know, not like literally, but just in this sort of metaphysical sense of like, this is how I want a movie I make to feel. And I also just found it so horrifying. Like it's such an amazing portrayal of like this just caustic, awful, codependent relationship between these two people and the the the like apocalyptic consequences of it, that it it just moved me, as well as just the surrealistic elements, the creature, which we can get more into later, the the ending, you know, it it just spoke to me. And I just I always it's one that I have ever since I watched it and have rewatched it and rewatched it and rewatched it since. Every time I'm writing a script, I think about possession. You know, every time I'm watching a horror movie that I really love, I think about possession. Because to me, it's one of the again, it's one of the best examples of just a completely singular original work that I don't think anybody else could have made exactly the way that it is. It's it's so surreal and odd, but it works.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Like there is a term that was used once for the work of the director Chris Cunningham, and it was that I think it was Mark Romanic said that he creates a hermetically sealed universe. Yes. And possession is a hundred percent a hermetically sealed universe. At the one hand, the performances are and the way in which people talk have this timbre that's like if aliens came down from space and made a film about how they think humans act, there's something that is so heightened about it, but at the same time it reveals something so intense and raw that that's at the truth of humanity. You know, Ajanny, after the movie was made, she said uh in her palm d'or speech, she said that it she called it emotional pornography because she said like Zilarski and like you can debate the ethics of like him pushing actors to this state, and in particular women, she said that Zelerski captured a piece of her soul on camera, and that like in some way this was she didn't consent to this, but that it describes the rawness of what there's so many. I was like when I I have two pages of notes from when I was watching the film this afternoon, and like there was just so many moments where I wanted to like I was like, oh that's incredible, like she is so good, but I I I go into that, I'll just talk about like my kind of history with the film, and and I think like the reappraisal it's got in the last few years. So like I first watched this into 2021, like yourself. I I can't claim to have been, you know, on the possession train for years and years and years. I watched it in 2021 um at the Prince Charles Cinema in London, which is like a great repertory and also a new movie uh cinema. If you ever get a chance, I totally urge you to go there, it's incredible. But I saw it and I I thought it was amazing, but I think my letterbox review the first time was is this dying? Is this what being dead feels like? Because it was the utter shock of like I knew it was incredible, but like I didn't know what to make of it. And it was at the time where this wasn't available on streaming, the physical copies were incredibly expensive, and it had this aura, this, this mystique about it before I went into it. I the second time I saw it was also on the big screen, it was at the BFI South Bank, and it was when are you familiar with Kirle Janice's book House of Psychotic Women? Which I have under my coffee.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

I I have not read it yet, but I I am familiar with the book.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

It was an event for the new edition of House of Psychotic Women, and she was there and she screened possession. And in the intervening year, I had gone through the end of a seven-year relationship where I was engaged, and let me tell you, the film hits a lot fucking different when you've gone through not a divorce but a long-term breakup.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

It is the it is the breakup movie, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Like it truly is. Like that and the brood, they're such divorce movies. So, like, for context, Zulewski made this film because uh he had A gone through a divorce, and B, he was living in exile because his movie The Silver Globe had been shut down by the Polish authorities because despite being a sci-fi movie, he was using that as a metaphor for criticisms about the government and about Poland. So it has that and and what I think is interesting as well is that it's very much a movie about immigrants. It might be set in Berlin, but it's Mark and Anna are both uh Anna is French, Mark is I presume from New Zealand, but it's not really established. But even like their friends all speak English, and even Margie has like a German surname, but she she seems to speak with a a very English accent. And I think like that's key to the sense of displacement that's in the film, is is like I think that is a part of like showing that these characters are not don't have roots, aren't tethered to the place in a in a in a very kind of like rigid way. I I think. But like over the years, I've rewatched it and it's just clicked with me. And I think like I mean, when I first started Estrogen, the first week that I was on estrogen, I put up a picture. I one day was watching TV, and something like fairly innocuous, but like meant to be emotional, fairly innocuous happened on TV, and I started crying and I couldn't start cry stop crying. And the next day I was like, I put up a picture of a Johnny screaming in the subway, and was like, How it feels to start estrogen, like literally in the last few years, the movie has definitely blown up, it's it's now available on I don't know what it's like in the US, but here it's available on Prime, and there's been new editions of it.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

Same. I watched it on Shudder today, but it is on Prime and other things like that as well.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Amazing. But like, yeah, I mean it's it's also uh before we start recording, I kind of joked I wanted to talk about like its status now, the way in which I engage with stuff about possession often is like you know, memes about trans girl comfort movies and like fan cams of her of a Jani to like Molchat Dharma. Like, yeah, that's have you kind of like experienced that too? Like, I feel like I've been talking for a minute, which I can do, but I want to see you speak to that.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Yeah, you know, yeah, like I I think that certainly I've experienced it as a queer comfort movie, but also just very much as a feminine comfort movie. A lot of just the the women and femmes that I know all love possession. And I I think that it is, it does, it speaks to this like almost like primal femininity to it of just like like it's sort of like okay, like the one joke that the actress made uh in in Hellraiser of like this is how far a woman will go for a really good dick. But like it's like like possession is like this is how far a woman will go for like freedom, in like, like, in like a real sense. And like, even though like Sam Elliott's character, Mark, is is like portrayed as becoming almost like violently sexist and like women are poisoning the world, his character, uh the the other characters in the film and and the writing uh push back on that in a way that feels earnest to me, even though the director was obviously going through shit with with his ex, it does feel like he's kind of saying, like, no, that's bullshit. Like, it it's not entirely shaming the the narrative doesn't feel like it's entirely shaming Anna for what she's doing any more than it's shaming Mark. And it's just like it it's such a primal like like femininity as nature, femininity as creation, and it's screaming and throwing up on the subway and breaking shit and cutting yourself with a fucking electric knife just to like express the anguish. And it's just there's so much passion in this movie.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Yeah, the sorry, go on.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

Yeah, no, I was just gonna say that I I think there is something that really appeals to that in that like a lot of women and femmes and and people in general are are raised to be quiet and polite and not make a stink. And possession is the opposite of that. It's it's a loud, destructive movie. And I think whether you agree with what the characters are doing or not, there is something it's it's again, it's to quote a fucking meme, it's that like, don't you just want to go ape shit kind of thing? Like, don't you just want to throw shit and break stuff and go crazy? And that's what possession is. I think it just speaks to people. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

Yeah. I I I mean it I think it's like we were saying, like, why can't I find striking is like Helen who is like the doppelganger character, also played by a Johnny. She's the she's the teacher, right? Bob's teacher.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

I I did have in my notes, like, there's some just bizarre stuff in the movie of like you know when your school teacher just walks in on you when you're in the bath and looks after you for a few minutes.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

But but um, yeah, she pushes back against Mark's kind of like women are uh are kind of evil, kind of trooper. Like you you you pointed out, like the the association with nature. It's like that women are something that are uncontrollable or that are ungoverned, and and he he kind of suggests about the like his thing of of being saying like women he's basically saying in a in a in a in a kind of like con highfalutin way that like women are emotional. Uh it's it's the same kind of shit that men say of like women are over-emotional, women are unstable.

SPEAKER_02 41:16

Meanwhile, like in a rocking chair, like sweating through a shirt, staring off into the distance.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Um the only thing Anna, the only thing she says in that moment that like seems turfy nowadays is she says the only thing that women have in common is menstruation, which is like completely, completely at the time was not what that meant.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

But when you watch it now, you're like, oh, it's one of those things that like I didn't I didn't take that to mean anything other than just the the character saying that women don't just have all these things magically in common.

SPEAKER_01 41:48

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

But that's basically the viewpoint.

SPEAKER_02 41:53

Well, and there's another point too, kind of going back to the the like, oh, women are over-emotional thing. There's a point when Heinrich and Sam are having an argument, um, which by the way, we have to talk about like the homoerotic implications between Heinrich and Sam at some point too, because Oh, yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

I don't think we have to address the questions.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

I think it's pretty obvious that like Yeah, it's just it's just something I love about this movie too. Yeah. But uh he says at one point, too, uh, to Mark, like, oh, you're just a woman, or you're being like a woman. Yeah. And I just think that that's so interesting that both kind of primary male characters in the film have this shitty view toward women while each of them are like falling over drunk and fighting each other and rolling around on the floor and throwing fits.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Like, yeah, I I I think in particular why, and I I talked about this a bit with my friend Nico in the last episode. Why I think the film speaks, and I think it speaks to I think it speaks to the fact that as a woman you are, you know, we deal with these hormonal things that it makes you it's like I thing is like people don't take this out of context and think that I'm making some declarative, grand declarative statement. But at the same time, like being a woman makes you insane in a way that the world does not acknowledge. And I think one of the things about being a trans woman is that we learn, we have like this d much delayed second proper puberty, and we learn that we have to deal with all this emotion, but also we can't express it, and that's I think part of why this movie has such an appeal for trans women. I'm talking about trans women in particular in this instance, because that's my experience, but it is like you feel like you want to be like a Jani screaming in the subway, being like, What the like how can anyone pretend like this is normal? And then but that I think that's why it why it speaks to a kind of like it's female motion in the most extreme way, and that obviously is going to appeal to us.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

Yeah, and yeah, you know, it also um makes me think of the the scene where Anna's kind of torturing the girl in her dance class, where she says, like, well, now she'll never say how talented she is without knowing how hard she has to work for it, basically, or like how how difficult it actually is. And, you know, again, kind of speaking specifically as a trans woman, but also knowing that this is sort of a universal feminine experience, is like the act of being emotional while being constantly told that you shouldn't be. To be feminine is to be quiet, to be polite, to be soft, like Helen in this movie, for instance.

SPEAKER_00 44:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

And so it it's a double-edged sword. And I think that's what kind of causes this madness is it's just like not only am I emotional and do I want to express that emotion, but then I'm told that it is incorrect for me to do so and impolite. And so therefore, you just want to scream and throw your groceries around.

SPEAKER_01 44:50

Anna and and also like uh Janny, the the blue dress, she's just so contour, she's incredible. From the moment that she arrives, her eyes are just like, you know, just light that I don't know where else you'd find in the universe, but like she's incredible. But but I think the thing for Anna is is that she is the struggle for her is trying to understand, she doesn't know who she is, and I think that that level of disassociation many of us can relate to. But she's trying to define herself other than the box in which of wife and mother that Mark and other people want to see her in. At the same time, Heinrich is interested in her and claims to be like Heinrich is such like a the absolute like over he's just like a woke fuck boy who uses the the kind of language of like sexual liberation and this kind of like hot religious kind of philosophy to to kind of like argue for what he wants and like ultimately he see he wants Anna because he sees her, he he talks about wanting to liberate Anna, but then he practically in the moment where he shows up at you know the squalid apartment where she has the creature, he's like, you know, it's time enough. Like I I I'm the only one who's able to lay claim on you because I lay no claim on you. And he, you know, wants to he talks about wanting to see, you know, the raw, unprocessed version of Anna that is just truly natural, and then he's presented with it in the form of the creature, and he's freaked out because that's not really what he ever wanted. It's like she is but it is Madonna Horror complex in that she wants to one person wants to put her into this Madonna box, one person wants to put her into the horror box, and the school teacher is like fucking trad wife dream of like very like traditional looking woman who is doing the nurturing school teacher job, who's of course great with Bob and great with kids, and you know, is very like would would fit into that return with a V-coded kind of idea of what women should be, and Anna is is is trying to escape from that basically.

SPEAKER_02 46:55

Yeah, and you know, the the the whole theme of of doppelgangers in this film of you know Anna find uh Anna, I guess essentially creating this idealized version of Mark and Mark discovering this idealized version of Anna in the form of Helen. Like, you know, but also both of these versions also being their own kind of potentially destructive force, especially with like the last shot in the film, you're kind of left wondering what Helen's deal is to begin with. But like, you know, there's there's something to be said for like wanting to be with somebody so badly, and yet them being so terrible for you that you create this like delusion of a perfect version of them that is exactly what you want.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:43

While also simultaneously like destroying each other, like all the argument scenes that they have and the throwing things and the hitting and the like it's just it's so raw, like mixed with these scenes of like weird, horrible bliss with their other doubles, like yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:01

I wanted to to speak to you know the kind of camp aspect that you we were talking about, if you want to talk about that. Yeah, I I just love how heightened it is movie as well, like the the the pink socks moment. Like, does our our target still wear pink socks? The that kind of it's it's it's got such a mash of tones in it, but continue, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 48:19

No, I I was just gonna say this this film is a great example to me of the idea that like camp doesn't inherently have to mean funny. Like the the this movie is undeniably camp. It it's so elevated and so heightened, and and it like everyone's just screaming and again like rocking back and forth in the rocking chair, the scene when like Sam Elliott is in the bed and he's just like throwing himself over on his side a bunch of times. Like it's it's it's very camp, but in a way that is distressing rather than hilarious, like in a way that feels almost nightmarish. Yeah, everyone is just at 110% at all times. Everyone's eyes are huge and they're sweating and they're whispering intensely into each other's ear. And well, what about this? Well, I've considered this. Well, have you thought about this? And it's just like it's it's like a it is it's like a domestic nightmare. And I think that camp is something that horror in particular has this weird relationship with of like, you know, a lot of times you'll hear something described as campy to mean bad. But I think in this case it it it's what it's part of what makes this film so great is that it is this weird, campy nightmare, but it never once feels silly. It just feels like, oh my god, what the fuck is wrong with these people? What's happening? What like it's uh it makes me think of um the descriptions of the movie Antichrist, Les Vantriers Antichrist, which is just like this is a movie that takes place in hell. Like everything is is terrible and there's no escape for anyone. Um, and I think the campiness really adds to that surrealistic horror.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

It's definitely a film that you can compare with Antichrist because it feels like it's dealing with the same kind of subjects in terms of the discussions in it. It's this treatise about is woman evil, is nature evil. I am a huge admirer of Vontrier's work. I remember seeing that there was like a QA with him, and I'm like, there is no other filmmaker who I admire more, but who I would want to spend time in his company less.

SPEAKER_02 50:19

That sums it up perfectly for me, yes.

SPEAKER_01 50:22

Yeah, like, yeah, exactly. And the one scene that I wanted to kind of ask you about what your interpretation of it of is, because I don't know what my interpretation is, is we see the moment where Mark is undressing Anna and he kind of like pauses while having his hand around her wrist.

SPEAKER_02 50:40

Love that moment, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:41

Which is incredible, which is later mirrored in when he is undressing Bob, I think after he has wet himself.

SPEAKER_02 50:50

So it's it's it's actually reversed. The scene with Bob happens first when he comes home and Bob is all neglected and messy, and then the scene with Anna happens shortly after when she comes home.

SPEAKER_01 51:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:00

Um to me, like sorry.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

I said what do you think that means?

SPEAKER_02 51:04

Like, because I I I mean uh not to sound cheesy, but I genuinely think to me that scene is like what this movie means by possession. He is trying to like physically, like it's like he's trying to wrap his hands all the way around them both and like have them and hold them, and they're his. And like with Bob, there's a little bit of an implication of like he's worried that Bob is like malnourished or something like that, but there's still like it's it's not a tender gesture, it's a possessive gesture. It's a like, I want to hold on to you and keep you here. And he does it later with with Anna, and again, it's the exact same mirrored shot. He wraps his hands around her torso, but he kind of hesitates and stops doing it. And he doesn't hold on the way that he does with Bob. And I think that it's just it's it's the literal physical action and representation of what the whole movie is about, which is somebody trying desperately to cling to someone or something that is not theirs to cling to and will not stay with them. So to me, it's just like that. That to me is it's it's the possession of it all. It's it's his character, this kind of masculine put together, like he's a literal spy. He's like suave and clean and cool, and his life is falling apart, and he's just trying to hold on to these two anchors to reality. Um, that that's how I saw it.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

It's interesting that he says, you know, when he's kind of like talking about laying down the law that he's going to leave Bob with Anna, it's he said at one point about restoring order, and I feel that's very that he's going to restore order, and I feel that's very telling is that it's like he's gonna restore order to like the nuclear family that he has just left her to to maintain, and that he just expects that he can come back to and that it will exist as the natural order is, and it's when you mentioned kind of his concerns about Bob being malnourished, or when he finds Bob is such a brilliant performance, it's so bizarre. Oh yeah. But when he comes back and Bob has got like the jam over him and it's all messy, it's like that really is Anna rejecting like the matriarch role, matriarch films as your company, but that the rejecting that is her rejecting the matriarch role because it's like she has broken the social contract of what like woman is to be by abandoning her child for long periods of time. Like, yeah, it it's very much a thing of that she is transgressing the expected roles for her. I wanted to kind of ask about was I feel like as uh are you you're you are queer, you date women, or am I over?

SPEAKER_02 53:47

Um I'm I'm bisexual, um, polyamorous bisexual. I I pretty much anybody who's attractive and interesting.

SPEAKER_01 53:53

Uh I am on paper a bi plus lesbian in practicality, uh mostly women and femmes as well.

SPEAKER_02 54:02

But then I I consider myself sapphic in that like I I can romanticize a sapphic love uh like a style of like romantic attraction, but physically I can be attracted to pretty much anything.

SPEAKER_01 54:14

Same. I I I have had partners that a partner that I called my boyfriend, B O I. I I I describe myself as a lesbian because I as a trans woman it's owning that label and it's a huge it has been hugely helpful for me and are a huge kind of like source of identification for me.

SPEAKER_02 54:32

More as I I do the same thing, and I I I used to consider myself les uh lesbian. Now I honestly I I lean more toward bisexual, just especially like with the current partners that I have. I I want to be, you know, make it clear that they're not like some kind of exception to a rule.

SPEAKER_00 54:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:48

But like, you know, it's hard. Identity is fluid, which I think is part of the fun and shouldn't be a problem for anybody. Of course.

SPEAKER_01 54:56

100%. And while watching the film, I was kind of thinking about do you feel like I feel like I have to a certain extent, by virtue of my queerness, escaped any chance. And you know, this is also could be seen as a negative, but I feel like my queerness affords me a certain distance from the patriarchal expectations put on women. I feel like my queer queerness means that by not dating cis men, I have somewhat escaped a lot of the patriarchal expectations put on women. It's not expected of me in the same way that I will be married to a man, and it's not expected of me to have children. Certainly not. I would fight for our rights to be able to do it, and certainly it would be it's something that I think should exist as a possibility for us, but as a queer woman, it's not something that is likely to happen, nor do I want. I do feel like I have a different relation to the societal expectations of women a little bit in that regard, because like I say, I'm not fulfilling the kind of relationship expectations of a woman. I that's a lot that I've said, but I want to.

SPEAKER_02 56:02

No, it's okay. I'm gonna try to speak to that because I have a couple of different sort of conflicting thoughts on it.

SPEAKER_01 56:07

As do I.

SPEAKER_02 56:07

And also, and also, like, I'm in America where right now trans people are dealing with all the shit America's doing. But like there is, you know, like I know trans women who really do want to conform to traditional femininity, they want a husband, they want kids, they want to be, you know, the the feminine matriarchal figure. And on the flip side, I know plenty of trans women like myself, like you, who are like, fuck all that, I'm what I want to be, and don't even ask me to explain it to you. I do think that while you can escape the societal expectation to conform to femininity, that does not mean that the patriarchal expectation is not still there in that. Like when you look at the trans women who are most accepted by mainstream society, they often do fit in for the record, I'm not putting this like a blame on these trans women in particular. I'm talking about 100%. But when you look at the trans women who are the most accepted by society, by especially the patriarchy, it is often the ones who do go out of their way to, or just happen to fit the most into those labels of femininity. They've had bottom surgery, or at least people assume they have without actually asking, or they have a boyfriend or a husband, or like they're because I think to a lot of people, they want trans people around only when they can't tell, when it's when it's hidden. So while I do think there's a lot of liberation in personally escaping or or avoiding the tropes and expectations of the patriarchy, I do think that it's important to note that those expectations and and pressures are still present. We have simply chosen to ignore them. But the patriarchy would still expect us to either well, primarily they would just want us all to be men again. But, you know, barring that, it would be they would expect the other extreme. You must become a capital W woman the way that they would define a woman to be. And even then, you know, they'll consider you an outsider. But, you know, now I'm just getting fully into politics. But like I I I do think that that it's still there. It's just a matter of how you respond to it or how much attention you pay to it, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 58:30

No, I I I I think that's that's uh that's certainly true. And I I would wanna, you know, I feel like this is something that is it's so complicated, and it's it's I I expect that everyone who takes the time to listen to a podcast is gonna have a good fate read of what I say because it's it is so complex. And and my attitude when it comes to any choice for trans people is that it is a hundred percent everyone's choice, and that some of these decisions shouldn't be politicized. Whether it's voice training, whether it's who we date, whether it's you know, all of these.

SPEAKER_02 59:05

Trans people, trans women, trans men, non-binary people that we're not a monolith any more than any other community is. Of course, not this is just us riffing on our own interpretation of things, of course. But like, yeah, but we are also like fascinating to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 59:19

Of course, yeah. And of we are like two blue-haired trans women who love possession, and I'm fairly certain you probably have a strong, a strong love of firewalk with me as well. Oh god, yes. No, but what what is I I think it's like important to talk about like when we talk about you know the the kind of these kind of like the trans femme comfort film canon, like I think like I think possession it is that feeling of of it's also like Anna is you know failing the expectations of gender from a cis perspective, and I think that's a huge part of why this m the film speaks to us as well. With Fire Walk With Me, it's just that like a lot of trans women at some point in your transition, you are going to feel like it's your life is fire walk with me. You're gonna feel like it's apocalyptic, and you're gonna feel like you know, you are you are yeah, you are a girl who's going through it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:11

Well, and like I want to go back to like we talk about like trans femme comfort films. I really want to go back to the like women as nature thing. Oh, yeah. Because I I do think that like literally, if you're a trans woman, you're you are self-made. You have reinvented yourself, recreated, reshaped yourself literally or figuratively, to best represent the version of yourself that you feel in your soul to the outside world. It is an act of rebellion, it is an act of rejection of everything society has taught us, and you are now living as your true self, regardless of what anyone thinks. And so with that does come this feeling of almost primal, like I am woman, I am feminine, this is who me, this is me. And so there is an attraction to these really intense women as forces of nature, women as destruction, women as chaos stories, because that's that it there's something un un unleashing, uh, that is there's something freeing about that. Yeah. Um, and I think that's why so many trans femmes, as well as just like queer women or even cis women that have kind of rejected or been through some shit, you know, we're all kind of drawn to this because it it's us a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:27

Yeah, a hundred percent. What I think about like this is the kind of like baby dollification of uh of serial killers that we've seen around true crime culture, which is predominantly consumed by women in the last decade. The the kind of emergence of a true crime culture is definitely driven by women, I would say. Um, women, of course, here being a wider word for all types that fit under that are comfortable under that banner. But I do think like thinking about like I think when it comes to like like I said, like the baby dollification, the thirsting for serial killers, I can see on the one hand how you know that stuff should be called out and we should talk about the realities, but I also feel like women deal with the tr possibility of being murdered all the time. Maybe we should just acknowledge that this is our fucked up response to that, is to like heaven forbid women have crushes, like maybe just allow people the fact that they have their own response to things, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:21

You know, part of what makes horror fun, and part of what draws me to it in particular because like you've you've you've seen two of my my films now, but like I tend to lean into the kind of extreme erotic style of of horror. And it is that like we are drawn to the taboo, we are drawn to danger, we are drawn, and we, as in society, as in women, as in everyone, because especially living in a very constrictive, patriarchal, Christian-esque world, we're constantly told what's bad for us. So eventually, if you're told enough times, don't press that red button, it's bad for you, you're gonna start looking at the red button and fantasizing about what would happen if you did press it. Even if you never do, you're gonna wonder what would happen if you did. And that's all it is. It's just, you know, it's not that anyone actually wants to have these terrible things happen to them. They don't. But it's it's fun to allow your brain to play about it because it's going to anyway. Yeah, yeah. So you'll allow yourself the the fantasy and allow yourself to just explore the what-ifs and the kind of darker side of things, because we can't help what our brains focus on, regardless.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:32

Yeah, 100%. And I can say myself, as someone who lit walked through the world for a long time, living at essentially as a man, albeit a strange version of one who didn't fit in. Um, you feel when you you start to transition, you realize I never realized the privilege that I had or the safe the feeling, the feeling of safety that I had. Yes. Of not being constantly aware all the time. And now I live with that all the time. And that is, you know, something that you have to listen, a voice that you have to listen to, but also not over-indulge. And I think that work that deals with, you know, the most violent worst-case scenarios can be cathartic in that it, like you said, it voices that part of your brain that is gonna think about that anyway.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:22

Yeah, you know, playing with and romanticizing and and engaging with the horrors takes a little bit of power away from the horrors and puts a little of it in your own mind. Uh, you know, because like, yeah, like I I was never afraid to use a public bathroom before. Yeah. And now I am. Like it's just like it's so you you've gotta take these things that and and let yourself have a little bit of control over them. And a lot of times the easiest way to do that is through fantasy, through story, through, through art. So that's what we do.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:57

So let's talk about the let's talk about Mark and Heinrich. First of all, I don't think it's up for debate that Heinrich has definitely sampled the transsexual as a I don't think it's uh it's up for debate that Heinrich has sampled everyone.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:17

Yeah. And I will say, I I do okay, this movie does have a little queer undercurrent to it because Heinrich is very clearly queer-coded, but also the two detectives it's revealed as a relationship and living together, which is just interesting to me. And there's a line that Heinrich says, I I forgot to write it down, but it's it's to Sam Elliott's character of like it's people like you, or it's thinking of like Sam Neil's character.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:46

Um you mentioned Sam Elliott earlier, so I think it just got like. God damn it.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:50

Yeah, there's too many Sam's. I'm so bad with names. Every time I've said Sam Elliott, know that I meant Sam Neil.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:56

Sam Possession with Sam Elliott would be something.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:58

Possession with Sam Elliott. It would be a very different movie. Possession with Sam Neil is excellent. Forgive me. But when when he when when Heinrich says something to Mark, it's something like it's people like you that led us to the camps or to the gas chambers or something like that. It's a throwaway line, but it's it's really direct reference to the Holocaust.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:18

And all I can think is like it, you know, especially for queer people, especially in Germany in that era, that would have been very recent history. Like, and and again, it goes into the fact that kind of everyone in this movie is in some way an immigrant or marginalized or outside of the norm. Yeah. So I I don't know, like the queer coding is it's it's it's fun to sort of watch this really weird, flirtatious, violent relationship between these two men, but I also think it is deliberate and kind of poignant.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:45

I I think that some of it is is the the kind of intimacy that exists where Heinrich is, you know, about fighting but also kind of like rubbing his shoulders. I think it's just another it's another kind of example of like how the film is about bodies and how bodies interact and kind of the tactile nature of that. Because there's so much to talk about in this film, and and you know, we have we are just scraping the surface, but and I'm sure most people are aware, but obviously there's the aspect of the film it it it mirrors splitting not just between the doppelgangers but the fact that this was shot in West Berlin pre-Fall of the Wall with special some they had special collaboration with West German with the West German government, but like when you see the border guards guns from Mark's apartment, like those are the real border guards.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:32

Yeah, like when they're looking at the through the binoculars up at the camera, that's just like a real thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:37

Like you know, it was kind of shot in Kreuzberg, which is like a very off-shot around that area, which is like was a heavily Turkish area. There's a reference, you know, that one of the detectives says something like racist about the a Turkish woman who when he's he's saying that you know there was a broken window and some glass fell down. But it's it it kind of emphasizes that coldness and the the lack of of feeling kind of moored to where you are is is a hundred percent part of that. But it's also like it is an immigrant, an immigrant, an emigrant story, in as much as it's also that it was the place that Zevsky was at in terms of while he was making it. Did you know that there was originally that Anna's ex-husband was a character in the movie?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:18

I did not know that, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:20

So originally Anna had an older, like academic guy who was her ex-husband, but it was literally a case of like the script was rewritten whilst they had arrived in Berlin to they realized that it wasn't gonna work with this character, but it's fascinating the stuff that didn't make it into the film. I mean, Sam Neil still won't talk about this film, it seems like it was quite a ch quite an uh an involving process.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:47

Yeah, he has said it was his favorite movie he's ever been in, which is interesting. But that is interesting to things, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:54

And I mean, also like the the creature, which is incredible, like just you know, tentacles.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:00

Every time I rewatch this movie when it's been a couple years, I always forget how like genuinely frightening the creature looks when you first see it. It's like so gross, it's scary as hell. The little beady eyes that are blinking, it looks really good.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:13

Oh, it's incredible, and that was designed by Carlo Rambaldi, but basically it was transported to Berlin, and they kind it's from what I've heard, it it was like with the creature, they kind of just got this creature in different pieces, and then like had to kind of on the fly figure out how they were gonna operate it and like puppeteer it. And with that in mind, like it looks incredible. I mean, one thing that I haven't mentioned we hadn't kind of previously mentioned is just like the camera work is just like this continue like the scene where Mark meets his superiors or his employers, and the camera's just tilting the whole time around the scene. It's like in that huge room that and it's it's also like there's so much space in it that is like massive, but also like has a kind of liminal feel to it where it's like the city is is huge, but you barely see people in it, you know, and it has that unlived-in feel that is really, really striking.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:12

Well, and like almost everything in this movie, except things in the old apartment where the creature is, is shades of like grey and blue for the most part. Um, except Heinrich's apartment has some color and the creature's lair has some color. But it's it's very deliberately like washed in a way that just makes everything feel like again, it adds to the dreaminess, but also the kind of vaguely apocalyptic feel of it all, that like everything's bluish and grey and washed out and tired.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:42

Like Can I can I ask in terms of the savages, is your background like were you raised Christian? Is that kind of part of your your kind of like uh your tri your mood board, your trauma board in terms of like that involves work?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:56

You know, I I I don't really have a lot of what I would classify as like religious drama. Like I originally was raised Catholic, and then at a certain point in my life, um I had to uh convert to Lutheranism, to uh specifically uh Missouri Synod Lutheranism, which is like a very conservative brand of Lutheran. And so I sort of saw at a very young age with Catholicism, and then as a little bit older with with the Lutheran church, the sort of double-sided coin of like mainstream Christianity. And I'm I'm saying this in a very, very personal small lens. But you know, I am not a religious person now, uh you can probably guess uh from seeing the salvages, but I am still very fascinated by religion, and particularly I'm just very fascinated by how we as humans sort of interpret and try to reckon with and communicate with like the universe and like the unknown. So religion to me is more of a tool to explore the kind of bigger ideas of like cosmic horror or like universal consciousness or whatever you want to call it, the idea that there's things out there that are bigger than us that know about us that are don't care about us. But also, again, living in Iowa, Iowa very, very Christian, very religious state. Um, so I'm I'm sort of surrounded by the trappings of Christianity, and so it's inspiring to me. But yeah, it it's more of an aesthetic I like to play in than something that I consider to be really integral, but I use it more as a way to contrast like the horrors of an uncaring universe or uncaring immense power with the belief in something that loves us and cares about us and takes care of us.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:42

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:43

Um, and I am interested in how God is referred to because God is brought up a lot in possession.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:49

To me, there's nothing to fear but God. To me, God is a kind of disease, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:54

Yeah. And you know, I I don't think that it's necessarily a religious thing, as much as again, kind of going back to that nature element of it all, of like how they each view what a creator must be in order to have created the world that they live in. But I I do find it fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:10

There's also at the before, just before Anna descends into the subway, and we have the most iconic few minutes in uh horror performance. I think she is in the church looking at the crucifix and looking at the face of Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:26

I actually have something I I literally just noticed it for the first time today, watching it, but it's relevant. When she has the the miscarriage in the subway, she says that like that was Sister Faith, and now I'm left with Sister Chance, so I must care for my faith. Is the implication that she didn't have a miscarriage, but she gave birth to that creature in the subway? Is that where it came from? Because if it is, there is sort of a virgin birth almost antichrist feel to it that this thing, yeah. Like, because the the ending, God, one shot in this movie that always sticks out to me is when the kid's going, Don't open it, don't open it, and you see the doppelganger standing out the door, like wiggling his fingers, and I'm just like, he looks like the devil, it's terrifying. And there is sort of this like vaguely miraculous birth antichrist feel to it all that I I I like a lot. But this was the first time I watched it and thought, oh my god, she literally did give birth to this thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:23

Like, yeah, I I I definitely think that that's potential kind of interpretation. The other aspect that I've kind of like the more I've watched, I'm kind of putting it together, is the the German woman who is screaming outside the apartment after it's exploded. Is that Heinrich's mother? She mentions later on going to the building, but there was just a hole in smoke, and the police wouldn't let her near.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:46

I don't know. See, that's a great question. It didn't even occur to me that that might be her. She's incredible. Um yeah, I love that moment because at first you always kind of think in a weird way, even though it's a totally different voice. I always think it's it's Sam Neil at first. He's like cackling, running out of this building after blowing it up, and then you realize it's this random woman like waving things around on the side of the street. But it's it's a great I yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:14

That explosion as well. It's just like when you're watching it, you're like, I did not expect there to be an explosion in a film like this. This was not have you watched a lot of kind of Zileski's other work? Because I have to confess, I as much as I sorry, I have not, admittedly, no, nor have I. One of my girlfriends really wants to check out Silver Globe, and it sounds fascinating. What's interesting is Zuleski talked about Silver Globe being like a Trojan horse of allowing using science fiction as the Trojan horse to talk about, you know, the politics of his country, and possession was the Trojan horse to talk about his divorce, these feelings of being in exile from his own country, and I suppose what his identity, you know. There's a doc great documentary on the second side box where it's like uh it was an episode of some French TV show because he he ended up working in France primarily in the in his films afterwards. But it's like him talking about his identity as a Polish emigre or as a Polish exile, and him talking about well, what does my identity mean as someone who is Polish but the country that I'm from rejects me, and I think that you know is very much a queer experience as well of like how I am lucky enough that you know we have better laws for trans people than the UK does, but there certainly is that moment of we have seen in Ireland, unfortunately, a rise of kind of like populist nationalism like everywhere else in the world. And it's like when I see these people out with like you can tell if a protest is like bad vibes here, if you see loads of Irish flags but no Palestinian flags, and um when I see that it's like the Ireland that they talk about is an Ireland that doesn't exist, never really did. And I'm like, well, I'm not part of that Ireland that they want. I'm not part of this this idealization of of the country, you know. I think like that is a queer I think queer people can relate to as well, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:12

Yeah, and you know, obviously again, this this goes without saying, but isolation is such a huge part of possession. I mean, it literally the Berlin Wall, but also the separation of this couple, like when they have the argument in the diner and they're sitting next to each other with different ball between them, you know, and and even again the separation between characters like Mark and Heinrich, with Heinrich being kind of this perfect, idealized, you know, sexually open person, and Mark being this very clean, fastidious, uh kind of control freak character, you know, that every everyone in this movie is experiencing some kind of isolation or loneliness, and while also just dealing with people that they just fucking hate. Um I I do think that you know, yeah, that certainly speaks to queer people, that speaks to anybody sort of on the margins right now. Just being simultaneously lonely and also not lonely and also surrounded by hostility, like it's it's just a weird, surreal time for a weird, surreal movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:15

Um you think that's why the movie has kind of like risen in estimation in the last few. Oh, by the way, have you seen what there's a I've not watched the whole thing, but there's a feature on on one of the discs where it does a side a comparison between scenes from the Cut That We Love and the original American edit that went out when it was released on VHS. And have you seen those comparisons? I have not. No, that sounds really entertaining though. Look how they massacred my boy.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:45

Look how they're god, the MPAA, the fucking guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:49

They add like they cut so much out of it. The scene where Mark gets the phone call, uh, which we must presume is from the entity because it's Anna says that she didn't call him. Um they completely changed the dialogue, they add these fucking weird solarization effects to loads of the sex scenes, they add these creepy, generic, spooky music. It was literally just like it felt like someone bought the film based on the title of possession, went, Oh, this isn't about demons, and then like just went in and did like because it is a horror film, but made like the most obvious rote horror film version out of the foot. It's a different movie made from the same foot. Yeah, I i it's it's terrible, but for years the legacy of this movie is that a lot of people hadn't seen the like the true version of the movie, and it has risen in the last few years, and I feel I feel like that is because we are reacting in this moment to an insane world. And I mean, I've I is there anything else you want to say on possession before I kind of bring to wrapping up?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:54

Trying to think. I I know for a fact that when I do eventually listen to this, I'm going to be constantly thinking of things I should have said or thought of. Um as always. But you know, I I don't think there's anything else really right now, other than just that I think it's a brilliant film that people really should watch. I think it's a good gateway film into extreme cinema because like it is crazy, but it's not it's not like so over the top that I think people won't be able to watch it. And I I think it's an important movie. I just think it's such a singular work of art and everyone should watch it for themselves. That's my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:27

100%. I think what you said what you said and what it's key to me is like I am so used to watching films that are just like easily digestible, have it's very clear what this is, and you watch it and like you enjoy it or you don't, but that's the relationship that you have to it. And with possession, my relation to it has changed so much every by the numerous times I watch it, and I still struggle to say everything though I ha I think about this film. Like I I I I preface talking about this, but like this is not my definitive take on possession. But that's what's so exciting, I think, in a world of you know, the mainstream media is pushing stuff that is just digestible to the most basic common denominator. This is it, we were writing stuff for people who are too screening, so we have to repeat things all the time so that people don't miss the important details. And it's like and and even in terms of you know, discourse when people don't want characters that are hard to digest or don't want material that is torny and has has elements that are are thorny and and difficult to unpack, is like the dominant mode that a lot of people want is something that's just easily digestible, and possession is far from that. It's and that's what I think make keeps it still excit like it's still exciting to me in much the same way that Best of Boat Worlds was still exciting to me after two views, whereas a lot of films are only exciting to me until I watch them.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:54

Yeah, you know, I I would just I would always encourage people not only like watch fucked up movies and watch extreme cinema, but like watch art that makes you think, watch things that are hard to digest, watch things that you know you're gonna have to watch a couple of times to really get it, or that you're never gonna get, but it's still worth watching. I just I think it's so important that we continue to flex our critical thinking and and creative muscles and don't just like I I'm not saying there's anything wrong with going to see a popcorn movie and and just enjoying a movie where you can shut off your brain and have a good time. I I have my own vices when it comes to things like that, but it's so important, especially right now, to engage with difficult and and dense art because otherwise, you know, if you don't use those muscles, you do lose them.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:40

So well, thank you so much. I I wanted to say I I screenshot it earlier, but I can't remember the exact wording. But bleeders ends with you saying, What what what is it that the last kind of piece of text?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:51

I I can uh I can read it. Hold on. In a world sick with hatred, love is punk, protect trans lives, free Palestine, fuck ice. I can't say it better than that.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:00

Thank you so much, Carson T. Marcy. I will include links to well, most of your films aren't viewable right now, but your novel is purchasable.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:09

Uh um, and if you link to my Vimeo and my social media accounts, I will be uploading some things in the near future too that'll be viewable. And hopefully bleeders will be coming to a screen near-ish people soon. So okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:21

Well, I mean, we'll look into tight and we'll we'll we'll talk about trying to get screenings over here.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:26

And uh yeah, it's it's a little early yet, but I do want to say that uh for the first time ever, I'm pretty close to having an actual little distribution thing with with bleeders and a couple other films. Oh, amazing. So I don't want to put the cart too ahead of the horse, but some of my work should be becoming a lot more accessible really soon.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:42

So yeah, I I think that there is like rightfully a a trans femme genre canon right now that exists with Vera Drew and Louise and Jane Schanbrum and uh Alice, uh Dylan Mars Greenberg as well. But but but my point being that I think that there are people like yourself and Dylan Mars Greenberg who haven't been discovered as much yet, and I think that it's important that we, you know, elevate these other voices as well, not take away from all those filmmakers who I love. I literally have castration movie poster on the wall.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:13

Oh, yeah, no, like I said, I would never even dream of comparing myself to somebody like that. But I will say that, you know, hopefully five, ten years down the line, you never know what's gonna happen, and I'm just gonna keep making stuff forever because I can't help myself. So hopefully it it continues to find its audience and speak to people. And, you know, whether it's a theater with 10 people in it or 100 people in it, it's a great time. So that's all that matters to me is that people see it and love it or hate it and talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:40

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, thank you so much.