Although Possession has numerous flights of fancy, there is one particular moment that absolutely neuters any straight readings of the film. This scene, which comes right about the halfway mark, is notoriously referred to as “the subway scene,” in which a laughing Anna ascends the escalator of a subway station and then proceeds down a long isolated hallway where she stops to have a fit the proportions of which have never been seen before or since. She laughs, she screams, she howls, contorts (even smacking her head against the wall at one point—which was real), regurgitates, flails, flops, and falls. This scene seems to go on so long that it starts off shocking, switches to ridiculous and lands at truly frightening—but in fact the sequence barely lasts three minutes. It is the scene that often divides viewers because of its unapologetic emotional excessiveness. But for me this was the scene that nailed it: it would forever be one of my favourite films.—Kier-la Janesse, House of Psychotic Women