Chaos is order left undeciphered. This is the aphorism and opening text to Canadian director Denis Villeneuve’s “Enemy,” the same filmmaker of last year’s mystery, child-abduction thriller, “Prisoners.” It’s an enigmatic philosophical verse that’s a huge indicator of what the viewers in for, a clueless, mind-bending, art-house conundrum that has no intentions of explaining itself. Loosely based on a novel entitled, “The Double” by José Saramago, Villeneuve’s adaptation throws some curve balls into the mix including bodysnatching tarantulas and seedy underground sex clubs.
Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal), a college history professor, lectures on the talking points of dictatorships and totalitarian governments to his barley attentive students. When he’s not having sex with his emotionally blunted girlfriend (Mélanie Laurent of “Inglourious Basterds,” and “Now You See Me”) he slogs through a mundane routine, loafing around in his cluttered apartment, without much real interest in anything besides sipping alcoholic beverages, grading his students’ papers, and zoning out. The pattern is broken when he’s recommended a video rental by one of his colleagues, a local film called “Where There’s A Will, There’s A Way.” Back at home, Adam views the film on his laptop. The end credits roll and they’re met with an underwhelming sigh before he decides to kip down for the evening, however he’s restlessly woken in the middle of the night by a foreign inclination to revisit it. What exactly is it about film that hints at him to return to it? A doppelganger, a double, an exact look-a-like that mirrors Gyllenhall’s outward appearance is spotlighted in the film, setting him on a quest to seek out the Hollywood dead ringer.
“Enemy” sternly assaults its viewers with unbearable white-knuckled anxiety in the same tradition that films likes “Eyes Wide Shut”(1998) and “Inland Empire”(2006) do. With a combination of an uncomfortably oblique score by Saunder Jurriaans and Danny Bensi, resembling something from the creative mind of Johnny Greenwood, Villeneuve somehow manages to make simple aerial shots of an architecturally distorted Toronto bleached in a yellow toxin unusually eerie. There’s a feeling of absolute panic that permeates the movie, never easing off, and remains ongoing into the abrupt, shockingly impactful, final shot, that’s so well executed, it’s justifiable why David Ehrlich, writer of Film.com, proclaimed that it “Might have the scariest ending of any film ever made.” Be that as it may, researching the ending before seeing “Enemy” will only diminish its flabbergasting power, given it looses potential to frighten once taken out of context of the film.
Part of what will determine how viewers respond to “Enemy” is what they expect of it. “Enemy” is an entirely different type of thriller then Villeneuve’s outing with “Prisoners.” “Prisoners” was a more commercial movie with identifiable dramatic scenarios that parents could easily empathize with, or really just anyone willing to put themselves in another’s desperate circumstance for two-and-a-half emotionally draining hours. Where as “Enemy” is theoretically abstract, and difficult to comprehend, even when it reaches its final outcome, it is surely leaving audiences puzzled, blurting out a collectively perplexed, “Huh?” or “What was that about?”
What’s disappointing about “Enemy” is that this familiar ambiguity and lack of clarity fails to work in the same spellbinding method seen before in tantalizing films like “Videodrome” (1983) or “Lost Highway” (1997). Not indifferent to last year’s “Only God Forgives,” a nightmarish, art-house. Bangkok revenge flick dedicated to avant-garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, “Enemy” does little on it own to differentiate itself from being a near homage film. “Only God Forgives” felt like Jodorowky for folks who haven’t seen Jodorowky. With “Enemy,” you get the idea that Villeneuve is playing dress up, or trying on the shoes of the adults, In this case the parents are fellow Canadian director David Cronenberg and surrealist director David Lynch. The film never hurdles over its influences, at no time attempting to assert itself as its own individual work in the process.
With that said, “Enemy” still works in the suspense department although its tension begins to plod in the latter half, before being revamped again right in the nick time for the ending. What exactly is the film about anyway? No in-person conversation or online outlet seems to have any clue, or a solid theory on its symbolism. Is it a Kafka-esque parable concerning adultery, or is it a body-snatching movie about totalitarianism? I have no clue. I’m not ashamed to admit that once “Enemy” cut to credits, I had no idea what it was ultimately about, or what it was trying to say. Not that I wasn’t expecting to in the first place. In most cases, surreal films need no explanation, but “Enemy” certainly suggest it’s drumming up some sort of commentary on male infidelity. Whether this obscurity is a positive or a negative, it’s up for the viewer to decide.
While its web has not been fully weaved, “Enemy” is still an exciting psycho-sexual, erotic thriller with classic Hitchcockian suspense. Expectations should be tampered however, as it doesn’t achieve enough flair to set it apart from the films it unmistakably idolizes. It’s not the potential future cult film I was hoping to gloat about, but time will tell on how others respond to it. Also, keep a look out for a familiar nightclub singer cameo about halfway through the film, an appearance surrealist cinema fans will enjoy.
Rob Gabe is a third-year student majoring in communication studies. He can be reached at RG770214@wcupa.edu.