This article contains spoilers for Atlanta season 3 and Possession (1981).
The return of Donald Glover and Hiro Murai's Atlanta earlier this year sure was a strange trip. After a few years off the air, coming back with a season of the show consisting of unrelated short films and the main cast out of their natural habitat gallivanting across Europe was a bold move, to say the least. The season turned out incredibly divisive, and it's not hard to see why.
Whether you enjoyed it or not, it's apparent that this new incarnation was dramatically different from the first two seasons of the acclaimed FX show. However, all of this weirdness came to an end with the finale episode, "Tarrare," titled after an actual person from the 17th century who could (and would) eat anything.
At first, the tenth episode of the show's third season first seems like a relatively straightforward homage to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's 2001 film, Amélie, but it quickly becomes something darker. Maybe in reference to another of Jeunet's films, 1991's Delicatessen, "Tarrare" becomes a dark descent into a cannibalistic underbelly of Paris. However, another film gives off a similar vibe to the episode, that being 1981's Possession. It was directed by Andrzej Żuławski and stars Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill.
While there is no official proof that the finale was influenced by the surreal horror masterpiece, people took to the internet to comment on the similarities. Before Atlanta returns in September for its fourth and final season, let's look at how a foreign psychological thriller from the early eighties might have influenced an episode of television four decades later.
Atlanta's Season 3 Finale
The season finale of Atlanta's third season finally sheds some light on what has been going on with Van, played by Zazie Beetz, during her trip abroad. Whenever she appeared on-screen this season, something seemed off about her. The episode starts by showing three characters the audience is unfamiliar with, indicating that this might be another episode that doesn't follow the main cast.
We are introduced to three American women in Paris on a vacation funded by a man who is paying one of these women, presumably a sex worker, for services. However, their vacation becomes a lot less fun, but maybe more exciting, when they come across Van, who seemingly has completely integrated herself into Parisian society.
Van brings these women into her new life, which somehow involves cannibalism, baguette beatings, and Alexander Skarsgard. Despite constant questioning from her friend about some increasingly disturbing errands, Van maintains that nothing is wrong. However, when her friend presses Van about how her daughter will fit into her new life, Van eventually breaks down and explains that she set off to Europe after a depressive episode.
As if broken free from a spell, Van decides it is time to return home to Atlanta and her daughter, finally up to the task of being her own person.
Possession
It's hard to summarize Possession concretely as it's more concerned with tone than narrative structure. At its core, it's a film about a man (played by Jurassic Park's Sam Neill) who tries to understand why his wife (Isabelle Adjani) is behaving strangely after he comes home after a long trip abroad. After some investigating, the man discovers that his wife is under the control of some tentacle creature. He tries to destroy the creature to free his wife but fails to do so, with the couple dying shortly afterward.
Reducing Possession to its basic plot does the film a major disservice. Its most memorable aspect is its haunting quality that emerges from combining terrifying imagery with Isabelle Adjani's wonderfully unhinged performance. Reminiscent of David Lynch's Inland Empire and its tagline, "A Woman in Trouble," Possession is a movie that forgoes specifics to tell a thematically resonate story about trauma, abuse, and control as it takes over and destroys a woman's life.
The film's lack of logical coherence creates a sense of unease that takes the viewer's sense of agency away, recreating the experience of being lied to and gaslit. Possession is a film that doesn't make much sense on your first watch, but it sinks its claws into you, refusing to be forgotten.
The Surreal Horror of "Tarrare"
After laying out the plots of Atlanta's season three finale and Possession, the similarities between the two are pretty clear. Both are about women who are acting oddly, and sometimes violently, after a prolonged period of absence. They both feature outsiders that get dragged into something surreal and disturbing by trying to figure out why a person they know is behaving strangely. They also share similar settings like white-tiled kitchens and brutalist social housing.
While it's likely a coincidence, it's also worth noting that Possession was a co-production between France and West Germany that starred a French actress and was filmed in Germany, while "Tarrare" stars the Berlin-born Zazie Beetz and is set in Paris. The international nature of each piece causes both of them to similarly lack a concrete sense of place.
Overall, it's an ethereal quality shared between Possession and "Tarrare." They both create a sense of discomfort in the viewer that is hard to shake. Thankfully, Van can escape and explain what happened to her, unlike the protagonists of Possession. Before that divergence, however, by showing someone acting out of the ordinary for unclear reasons, Possession and the third season finale of Atlanta masterfully create a similar sense of unease in the viewer that makes for a compelling viewing experience. This may be all by accident, but intentionally or not, "Tarrare" contains echoes of a film from a very different time and place.