Villeneuve’s film, Enemy (2013), is ostensibly
about two men who look alike (they are played by the same actor). Jake Gyllenhaal
plays both Adam and Anthony. That both characters have the same frontal scar in
the same bodily location signals that the identity goes beyond the possibility
that they are identical twins. The identity topic in philosophy of mind is thus
salient in the film, and this has invited several commentators to delve deeply into
psychological analysis to suggest that Adam is a figment of Anthony’s
subconscious, or vice versa. The film does not make clear what exactly is real
and what may be a character’s mental construction. Suffice it to say that the
film is very difficult to comprehend. Even when Anthony’s wife appears to
Adam/Anthony as a giant spider at the very end of the film, it is only
conjecture to assume that the spider represents the heaviness of constraint in
being in a relationship of commitment rather than anything goes—the latter
being inconsistent with a real relationship. The film presents the viewers with
intimations of philosophy of mind and more directly of relationship ethics;
these two domains play off each other.
