Back in 2013, Denis Villeneuve was about to release two high-quality films,
which ultimately led him into bringing us three of the films of the decade. Before Sicario,
Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 came Enemy and Prisoners. In particular, Enemy uses messages
to communicate the grief and self-exploration that many of us go through, in a more
extreme sense, through Jake Gyllenhaal's Adam Bell. In this video, I'm going
to be giving you my thoughts on Enemy, exploring how filmmaker Denis Villeneuve
creates a film full of thematic meaning. This video essay continues my Road to Dune series,
where I create content on all of the dune adaptations, Frank Herbert's original novel,
Denis Villeneuve's filmography and his upcoming 2021 film. During the build-up,
I will also be covering any news and information surrounding the director's latest project.
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in the description below. But without further ado, let's dive into Denis Villeneuve's Enemy.
So Villeneuve's Enemy follows an awkward professor named Adam Bell
who lives a dull and repetitive life in a world lacking uniqueness. Every day he wakes up in
his empty apartment that has no personality to it, he works at a university where he lectures
about totalitarian regimes and how they’re created, he goes home and he sleeps with a
woman whom he doesn’t seem to have any emotional attachment to. And so the cycle begins once again.
In his initial lecture, Adam talks to his students, saying, “Control,
it’s all about control. Every dictatorship has one obsession and that’s it. As Adam alludes to,
they kept the population busy with entertainment but other dictatorships used other strategies
to control ideas. The knowledge… how do they do that? Lower education, they limit culture, censor
information, they censor any means of individual expression and it’s important to remember this,
that this is a pattern, that repeats itself throughout history.” In this sense, Enemy is
a simple story used to illustrate a moral lesson about what it’s like to live under a totalitarian
state without knowing it. Adam is living in an oppressive state that limits creativity and any
means of expression, hence why he lives in a bare apartment in an empty relationship with a woman,
doing the same repetitive activities that leave him unfulfilled. The central irony in all this
is that even the main character, though he is an expert on the ways of totalitarian governments,
doesn’t see the web that’s overtaken the city until he’s already stuck in it. But Adam’s vacant
world turns upside down when he sees a film, which another professor recommends, and notices that
an extra looks exactly like him. He of course becomes obsessed and gives himself a purpose,
a conflict to his dull storyline where he lacks confidence and has no direction in
his life. He must find out who this man is, and this leads him to Anthony, an actor who
lives a fulfilling life, has a pregnant wife, a stylish apartment, and is a part of some secret
sex society that’s never truly explored. Anthony is basically everything Adam isn’t.
The actor is living an ideal life just out of Adam’s reach. While Adam barely has a girlfriend,
Anthony has a young, angelic wife who is pregnant with his child. Yes, she is suspicious of Anthony,
but she’s invested in their relationship, unlike Adam’s girlfriend. On the other hand,
Adam, who's always stumbling over his words, has a boring apartment empty of any decoration
while Anthony is confident, quite arrogant, and lives in a high rise building that any person
would dream of having. Anthony’s world reminds Adam of his lack of motivation
and his life, in the sense that he feels he has no meaning because the society he lives
in has stripped him of his potential, the potential that is Anthony’s full reality.
In the film, this builds and builds, stressing on the meaningful relevance of its filmmaking and
character development until one particular moment. This moment comes when the two men decide to meet,
face-to-face, and in turn, both of their worlds fall apart. Adam wants to get a closer look into
Anthony’s life while Anthony feels threatened by this man who seems to want to take over him. So,
Anthony uses his arrogance, his forceful personality to overtake Adam, like society does to
him, as well. He controls him by intimidation, by following his girlfriend to work, and therefore,
controls the conflict of the film. Control is of course the very something that Adam doesn’t have.
But as the film progresses, Anthony eventually orders Adam to allow him to take his girlfriend
on a romantic getaway simply because he’s a domineering, sexually fulfilled character while
Adam can seem to be sexually frustrated due to his rocky relationship with the woman who stays over
his apartment every night. In retaliation, Adam infiltrates Anthony’s life by going to his
apartment, changing into his clothes, and sleeping beside Anthony’s pregnant wife
who also looks very similar to Adam’s girlfriend. Like the comparison between Adam and Anthony,
she is the idealized version of Adam’s partner. He does the same thing Anthony is doing,
transitioning into a vastly different life from their own, because, in a way,
Anthony is just as unfulfilled as Adam and wants the chance to play a different role.
It’s only when the movie gets to its final scene that the meaning of this film becomes
much more clearer. The moment Adam walks into Anthony’s bedroom to find his wife,
he stumbles upon a gigantic tarantula hiding in the corner of the room. Enemy
is a film about a man unwittingly living in a totalitarian regime constraining his creativity,
thus forcing him to live out an idealized fantasy in the form of a doppelganger. In my own opinion,
Anthony doesn’t exist. He's a figment of Adam’s imagination, and this chase he goes on to uncover
who this mysterious actor is is simply a chase to find purpose in his own life. It’s only when
Adam hits the climax of his idealised life, in Anthony’s lush apartment and everything that
comes with it, that he is put back into reality by seeing the tarantula overtaking the life he’s
subconsciously dreamed of having. It's a jolting kind of ending, like a dream that one enjoys,
only to be abruptly awoken back to reality. Denis Villeneuve said
in an interview that, “Sometimes you have compulsions that you can’t control
coming from the subconscious… they are the dictator inside ourselves.” And Adam can’t
help but create an idealized fantasy of a life he wishes he would live. But instead is caught
in the web of a totalitarian regime that aims to run out of creativity and self-expression
like a tarantula weaving a web that insects unintentionally fly into,
trapping themselves in for the rest of their lives. Adam’s journey to uncover the life of
his alter ego and idealized self is a detailed metaphor of self-expression and exploration.
It’s only when the tarantula comes to haunt him that he realizes, it was all just in his head
and an idealization. All in all, this movie beautifully symbolizes
that guilt is like an ever-growing scary spider that haunts and broods the hero.
To me, this is the meaning of Enemy, but what it speaks to is something that Denis Villeneuve
does in every movie he makes. It may be less or more extreme in others, but it can teach us about
him as a filmmaker. I'm talking about how Denis creates meaning in his films. Villeneuve says that
at the end of the day, the reason why everyone goes to see movies is to be moved by the poetry of
the image. Poetry is undoubtedly the most critical component of good cinema. If you talk to film fans
and mention the title of a well-known movie, it's likely that some key moments or set pieces
will come to mind. Those frames were imprinted for a reason. That, he says, is because those
images had a profound meaning. That meaning is orchestrated by the movement of the camera,
the light, the design, and the elements that create an invisible meaning. To Denis,
this is poetry. He says that the goal should be to have as many of these moments as you can,
to profoundly impact the audience by creating images that they will never
forget. And the director is well known for creating tension that draws you in,
only elevated by the meaning he puts on display. If we look at Enemy, and even Prisoners and
Sicario, they all have a way of creating incredible tension between characters
in impossible situations. It makes it hard for you to look away. He says that one of
the key elements for tension is that you need to make people relate to the narrative
through the subconscious mind. You have to bring the story to life, whether that be through light,
props, or anything that makes it feel real. Villeneuve says that you have to bring in
something for your audience to relate to, and give them a clue to create suspense about something
that will happen. You need to make the audience wonder. And like in the case of Enemy, something
doesn't need to happen every time, because a poetic aspect can come from the absence of
that thing happening on screen. This is the essence I get from watching the film,
and it's Villeneuve focusing in on that. The subconscious experience.
On the concept of the boundaries explored in Enemy, We all have multiple identities inside of
us. It's about the power of the subconscious and how our actions represent that side of the self,
and who is really in control? The influence of the past on our lives and the strength of
the past is something that really terrorises us because it means that we aren't totally in
control of our actions. And something that is more connected to his more recent films
is that the landscape of a movie is part of the equation that creates and elevates
the meaning of it. The massive metropolitan area in Enemy that's oppressive, inspires it
and it creates fear and paranoia because you feel there are too many souls around
you. It gives you a claustrophobic feeling and handles ambiguity and symbolism in a clever way,
while still providing the more concrete thrills of watching a great actor and director do
adventurous and striking work. It's a rare thing today, and that’s why Enemy is so brilliant.
But that was my video essay on Denis Villeneuve's Enemy and the importance of meaning that puts into
his work. What will be intriguing to see in Dune, is how the director will balance the artistic
and blockbuster approaches. I believe the director will take a more grounded approach,
but one which also shows more clearly the ideas, meaning and questions that dune and
science fiction fans what to see. I will be doing videos that go deeper on this in the coming months
and it will be fascinating to see which route he eventually takes. But let me know down below
what you personally thought Denis Villeneuve's Enemy, alongside things that you find intriguing
about how the director uses meaning in his work.
My next video in this Road to Dune marathon continues with Denis Villeneuve's Prisoners,
where I will be going deeper into how the director crafted a narrative maze of
perfection. This will be released in the next week alongside much more content on Dune 2021
coming over the next few months. To stay up to date with this series along with all the latest
news on Denis Villeneuve's DUNE, then subscribe to the channel and turn on your notifications. Also
if you enjoyed this video remember to leave a like rating and follow me on social media
via the links in the description. But anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed it,
I've been Cortex and as always make some noise.