The unlikely movie Denis Villeneuve calls his most “personal”
Denis Villeneuve is the name on everyone’s lips right now. After unleashing Dune: Part Two on the world just last month, the Canadian director is being helmed as one of the most exciting figures in filmmaking, and for good reason. He’s working on an absolutely unparalleled scale, reinventing the blockbuster with landscapes and stories the likes of which have never been seen on-screen before.
Villeneuve’s efforts have gradually been gathering in scope since he made his debut with August 32nd on Earth in the late 1990s. Since then, he seems to have settled into the world of sci-fi, a realm that seems perfectly suited to his mammoth movie-making skills. Though Villeneuve has come to be known for his stellar cinematography and worldbuilding, he always maintains a sense of the human, too.
In 2016, he took his first steps into science fiction with Arrival. The film merged discussions of language with depictions of aliens, but ultimately, the focus was humanity. This preoccupation with human life amidst huge landscapes and extraterrestrial elements has been a central element in his cinematography ever since, finding its place amidst the neon lights of Blade Runner 2049 and the sandy landscapes of Dune.
There’s a personal element to all of Villeneuve’s projects, but there is one film that the director believes to be his best in that regard. During a conversation with Film Comment, Villeneuve revealed that he considers 2013’s Enemy to be his “most personal” movie, noting how it traverses the fear of failure and of the subconscious.
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Enemy is a story of spiders and surrealism set in Canada. Though it isn’t quite as ambitious as some of his more recent work visually, it contains his slick cinematography style and hints at his interest in widening the scope. There are shots of arachnids being crushed by heels and towering over Toronto in the image of Maman, but beneath the spectacle, the focus is on feeling.
Gyllenhaal plays a teacher named Adam Bell and an actor named Anthony Claire as the lives of the two men become intertwined. Somewhere between the sepia sex scenes and a lethal car accident, Villeneuve creates an unparalleled sense of dread and fear in his filmmaking. Anxiety grows until we come to realise that Adam is his own enemy.
As events unravel, the spiders only serve to enhance this feeling. Foreboding and frightening, they seem to represent that same dread. The film is just ambiguous enough to become personal to anyone who watches it, not just to Villeneuve. It’s a film for you to paste your own anxieties and opinions into, for you to decide what the spiders mean, for you to decide if Adam and Anthony are even different people at all.
For Villeneuve, though, the film is best described as an “exploration of worry”. It certainly achieves that goal, forcing Adam’s anxiety onto the viewer with its alarming pace and shots of one of the most feared animals.
Villeneuve has certainly maintained a sense of the personal in his filmmaking since, from making statements about love and choice through Amy Adams’ character in Arrival to exploring what it means to be human in his Blade Runner sequel. Still, it’s easy to see why the director still considers Enemy to be his most personal, hugely affecting film about the human psyche.
Revisit the trailer for Enemy below.
