Enemy (2013)

Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered. José Saramago  

Enemy (Denis Villeneuve, 2013) is a Canadian-Spanish production loosely based on Jose Saramago's The Double, with screenplay by Javier Gullón. In a way, this is an intriguing encounter beetween the universes of the late portuguese writer (philosophical, intellectually on point, somewhat morose) and that of David Lynch (fantastic, dreamlike, highly symbolic). In Villeneuve's movie we are introduced to a College history teacher (Jake Gyllenhaal) by the name of Adam Bell, who leads a life apparently devoid of all excitement, a guy who seems totally focused on his academic discipline and who, as he himself claims "is not interested in movies" and probably, the viewer guesses, not into any other form of entertainment either. He just teaches history at College and makes love to his fiancée Mary (Mélanie Laurent), that's all.

 Doppelgänger

But one day he comes across something really weird, something that will turn his monotone life upside down. On one ocasion a colleague suggests he take a look at one particular movie that he might find of interest which comes under the title of Where There's a Will There's a Way. Without much excitement, Adam rents a DVD of the movie and makes a pretty scary discovery: in the movie playing a very small role, there is an actor who is physically identical to him. Yes, a double, a doppelgänger, there in that obscure movie he had never heard of. After some quick googling, Adam finds out the identity of this second-to-third-rate basically unknown actor. He learns that he has just made a few movies and played in very small parts, as an extra, essencially. The actor's name is Anthony Claire and the little information he finds in the internet makes it clear that they are like two drops of water, or next to it.

Adam also finds out that his double (played also by Gyllenhaal, obviously) lives in Toronto as well, this dreamlike Toronto as depicted in Enemy, and he decides that he should meet him. Eventually the two men will meet in a creepy, slightly terrifying, face to face encounter, that Adam cannot completely cope with. 

Except for some minor details (Anthony wears a wedding ring), the two appear to be identical. Also both happen to be related to physically similar blond girl friends: Mary (Mélanie Laurent) and Helen (Sarah Gadon), Anthony's wife, who is 6 months pregnant. Adam and Anthony might look identical in physical terms but their psychologies drastically differ. Adam, the history teacher, is dubious and hesitating; Anthony, on his part, is more proactive, even agressive.

There is an unequivocal Lynchean atmosphere, oneiric, weird, in the development of the story. We find spiders here and there in the course of the movie, as if the spider (and a spider's web) was a key concept to the understanding of Enemy. What is going on here? What is the deeper meaning of this strange movie we are seeing?

Spiders here and there

I remember some time ago talking to a friend who had been engaged for a few years, though not yet married to his fiancée. I asked him how the thing was going, and I recall him saying something like At first I felt sort of trapped. But now I would say I am fine. Well, trapped. And this has been pointed out as one possible key to the underlying meaning of Enemy. This feeling of being trapped in a relationship, which is not clear. As if one was a kind of insect in a spider's web, and even ready to be devoured by the spider. And who is the spider? Well, uh, the woman. And the spider's web is nothing but the commitment: this commitment so often demanded, which some find suffocating, and so hard to stick to at times.

Also there is this final shot in Enemy. Again involving a spider. The most terrifying final shot in all movies, as some have said. Don't know if the most terrifying one, but scary as fuck, all the same. Spiders.

Spiders. Are they the clue? Being trapped by the spider's web of a commited relationship. Or is this, as someone else has suggested, an Invasion of the body snatchers thing? Could Anthony Claire, Adam's doppelgänger, be truly a spider in a human disguise? Well, anyway, Enemy is rich enough to allow different interpretations, as dreams do. One thing is certain: here is a story of the Mulholland Drive sort: incomprehensible, complex, lysergic, scary. Wonderfully image-turning. Filled with enigmatic clues and symbolisms to taste, if you are into it (Is this chaos decipherable?) If not, you can at least enjoy a good lynchean oneiric ride, without caring much about the meaning.