Possum (2018)

Day 150 of Sobriety.

I had been looking forward to seeing Possum for a while, and finally caved in and bought it on blu-ray , as that is probably the only way I will ever get to see this independent British production. It was directed by Matthew Holness, who is familiar to some of us through his work on British TV, notably his Channel 4 horror-comedy Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and his brief appearances in Ricky Gervais’ The Office as Simon, the obnoxious computer technician.

Around the time Possum was released, I read an excellent interview with Holness on the wonderful Haunted Generation hauntology blog. In the interview Holness discusses his various inspirations, many of which are hauntological in nature, such as the British public information films of the 1970s, and also his love of Hammer films. So much of what he said resonated with me that I couldn’t wait to see all of those influences manifest themselves in his first feature film: Possum.

 

Unfortunately, upon finally viewing the film, I was slightly underwhelmed. It certainly has much of the hauntology look and feel to it—in no small part thanks to the contributions of graphic designer Julian House (of Ghost Box fame) and the excellent score by the Radiophonic Workshop, who soundtracked the childhood nightmares of many of us who grew up in the UK in the 1970s through their work on various TV programs, perhaps most famously Dr. Who.

The story of Possum focuses on a mentally disturbed children’s puppeteer who, after a (only vaguely described) scandal in the course of his work, returns to his childhood home, where he is forced to confront the childhood traumas that have deeply affected his life.

The film is a mood piece, with a very small cast (mostly revolving around two people), minimal dialogue, and a narrative that develops mainly through oblique implications until the final denouement. The pace is very slow, which I don’t mind, but my feeling was that its actual substance was stretched a bit too thin across the film’s running time. While it nailed the bleak atmosphere that it was aiming for, I just didn’t feel that it had enough substance to sustain itself as a full-length feature. It felt kind of like a 30-minute short stretched out to an hour and a half. I didn’t hate it by any means, and I will doubtless watch it again at some point, but it didn’t quite live up to my lofty expectations.

 

A personal aside: today marks my 150th day sober. Something of a milestone, I suppose. Yesterday a friend came to visit and we watched a movie together. This particular friend is, like most of my friends, a drinking buddy. He drank a fair bit of beer while he was over, which is cool with me, but I didn’t feel too temped to throw in the towel and join him. It was relatively easy for me to forget that the beers I was drinking were alcohol-free. I did, however, feel slightly bad that I couldn’t join him in getting drunk: feeling like I had—in some strange sense—abandoned him. For his part, while I’m sure he would have preferred it if I had joined him in a drink, he was perfectly cool about my abstinence.

One thing he did say that saddened me slightly was that it would now be harder to invite me out when he was meeting up with common friends. I can fully understand what he meant, as most of those gatherings are drinking parties—whether at someone’s home, or out in bars, etc. I guess I perhaps need to counter this by making more of an effort to be proactively sociable myself: to be the inviter, rather than the invited.