While Denis Villeneuve‘s new film opening this week, Prisoners, will be far more well known among general moviegoers, Enemy is likely to be the film that inspires more conversation among cinephiles discussing the director’s collaboration with star Jake Gyllenhaal. I caught both films at the Toronto Film Festival this year and I’m still unable to fully explain everything that takes place in Enemy, but I had one hell of a time discussing it with anyone interested in talking about it.
Here’s the opening to my review from Toronto:
A giant spider slowly walks across a bleak Toronto skyline. A history teacher sees a man that looks just like him in a random movie. A pregnant woman thinks her husband may be cheating on her. A mother is just happy her son is no longer satisfied being a third-rate actor. These are a few of the facts that make up Denis Villeneuve’s Lynchian new film Enemy, a film I’m still processing and perhaps forever will.
Based on “The Double” by Nobel Laureate José Saramago, Enemy drowns the mood in darkness as the film opens with a man walking down a long, dark corridor. We’ll later recognize him as D-level actor Anthony Clair (Jake Gyllenhaal), but here he is just one of many men, gazing wide-eyed as women dance naked for their pleasure. The dance ends and two more women make an appearance, carrying a sterling silver tray, placing it on the floor and lifting the lid. A tarantula is revealed and it slowly crawls off the tray as one of the women moves to squash the arachnid under her heel. Cut to black…
You can read the full review right here and I’m quite certain this is a film that can’t be spoiled even if I told you the entirety of the narrative, so feel free to watch the following teaser trailer as it merely sets the mood, nothing more.
A24 acquired the film out of Toronto and will likely release it some time in 2014. [Fotogramas via The Playlist]
