Abstract

Possessor (2020) is a science fiction film written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg. The story, set in an alternative universe, follows Tasya Vos, an assassin that uses a special machine to take control of others’ bodies to carry out her hits. Through an implant installed in the unwitting host’s brain, Vos insert her consciousness into their minds, forcing them to commit the assassination. As such, the film explores the relationship between technology and identity. The hosts lose control of their own body, while Vos, by being constantly in control of others’ bodies, living their lives, loses sense of herself and her life.
In this sense, technology and the individual are tied to modernity, which is characterized by Gilbert Simondon as the appearance of a new type of individual. Man was a tool carrier before the machines, and he was the technical individual himself. In the modern-industrial era, machines are the tool carriers and man is no longer the technical individual; he has become either their servant, or their assembler (apud Stiegler, 2014).
Taking this into account, the purpose of this study is to analyze how Possessor uses technology as a destructive and dystopian force that threatens every aspect of our reality, generating a dehumanizing effect, and how the film explores the idea of technology being responsible for the lack of identity and the violence, thus revealing some of the malaise of our contemporary society.