I am so grateful my girlfriend pushed this movie on me. Zulawski's POSSESSION might be my favorite film of all time, but I'd never seen a trailer for this one, so I hadn't yet thought to check out his next film following 1981's Possession, which is this, The Public Woman.
Now, Zulawski himself claims that he was asked to direct this movie by the producers who wanted to do an adaptation of Dostoyevsky's novel "The Possessed", but I am shocked to see that no one else has mentioned or inquired upon all the seemingly blatant parallels that this movie draws with Possession and it's production. There are endless details suggesting that the tyrannical director character in the film very obviously represents Zulawski himself, while the protagonist often seems to represent Isabelle Adjani (the lead actress from Possession). It's well known that Adjani had an intense and traumatic experience creating Possession, effecting her for years, and a great part of The Public Woman is about a director pushing a young actress to her absolute limits in an attempt to almost break or change her, in order to get the sort of performance he wants out of her. There are movements, sequences, lines of dialogue, and more that all directly correlate with this idea, then the fact that it's about adapting a book called "The Possessed" is icing on the cake. The French actress asks the director, "Why are you shooting your film in Germany?" This is all just a very intriguing element to me, and I love movies that sort of have this digging-through-the-4th-wall vibe by tying in publicly known elements from reality. The wildest part is that if this theory is correct, in the case of this film, rather than being an expression of catharsis as most similar cases would be, it's quite the opposite - a primarily narcissistic bloat piece which also happens to be artfully masterful.
Zulawski's signature olive green + puke color palette is in full effect here, and only he could make me love it. His signature camera work, often chaotic, claustrophobic, and sometimes even moving as if it has a mind of it's own - is all alive and well here as well. The stylishness of the filmmaking is cranked up to 11, but of course, the most important part of the film is the fully explosive and maniacal acting performances from the entire cast. The immense acting is what really brings the movie to it's own insane and legendary realm, and keeps it there. It seems undeniable that the director character represents Zulawski because there is no other explanation as to why we see acting performances in Zulawski's films that display a unique intensity that goes entirely unmatched. Every character in this movie is a monster aside from the beautiful, graceful lead played with grace, excellence, and almost inhuman spirit, by Valerie Kaprisky, who wasn't the original choice for the role and who was heavily doubted by the producers beforehand. They could not have been more wrong - Kaprisky is absolutely stunning and a complete force of nature.
The narrative will play with your head as it weaves in and out of a film production within a film - sometimes you won't know if what you're seeing is part of the film they're shooting, or simply part of the film you are watching. It doesn't get old, and it heavily adds to the surrealism of the entire experience. Sometimes it feels like the narrative is moving a million miles per hour, and sometimes it feels like it has you trapped in a corner so it can torture you for a while, but regardless it is a powerful one and it is a fully impressive and singular experience.
I've only seen 4 of Zulawski's films (the others being On The Silver Globe, which is one of the most challenging but impressive films I've ever seen, and his swansong Cosmos, which is one of the emptiest films I've ever seen), and although Possession is my personal all-time favorite, I think The Public Woman may very well be his most watchable in a universal sense. I will not hesitate to call it a masterpiece! Long live the Polish master.
