I tried to avoid this movie, but after some serious recommendations I watched it in the end. And the result is mind blowing insight into every man’s nature…
So let me explain again – I didn’t want to watch this film at the very beginning, because it radiated darkness so much, that I felt it would definitely affect me. And I like my movies like my every other art form – to enjoy it when I am in the proper mood for it. I will always think that an art piece (no matter if music, movie, literature, painting, sculpture, etc.) has to be perceived when in the proper emotional condition.
But after all I was impressed by the fact that so many reviewers who’s opinion I value have recommended it. I have the similar case with the movie “Under the skin”, but I will deal with that film later. So here’s what I think of it…
First of all – I discovered Denis Villeneuve as a director. Wow! A great line of movies which will surely build up my expectations for his next works.
Second – Jake Gyllenhaal is in a winning streak… I cannot remember if I have watched a “not so good” movie with him. Every single film he has done in the last years is almost perfect – Nightcrawler, Enemy, Prisoners, End of Watch, Source code, Love & Other Drugs, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Zodiac…way back to Donnie Darko – all of them are pretty decent to great, almost perfect movies!
The script – amazing! Metaphors, Symbols, Analogues, etc. – almost every single stylistic device is used in this movie. Coming as an adaptation of the book “The Double” by José Saramago this movie is truly a masterpiece of cinema.
Maybe I didn’t give it 10/10 only because the style of the atmosphere was not what I like most, but it truly fits the psychosis emotions of the main character(s). The music was also fitting – I really liked how Daniel Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans embodied the characters’ emotional transitions between guilt, angst, rage, curiosity, depression, disappointment, relief and frustration. The conscious and subconscious war going on between Adam and Anthony is on purpose and leads indeed to a repetitive rejection and susceptibility to lustful yearnings.
Yes, maybe the main character feels as if the spiders – his wife and his mother (maybe it all comes from her?) try to take his freedom, but the decision to keep the key at the end of the movie is all his farce.
And as we think – it is in men’s nature to always be yearning, conquering and obsessive. So the solitary side of the main character is representing the man’s will to set things right and not fall into the pit of desires. And the egoistic and hypocritical, always evasive, side is constantly interrupting, trying to prevail at any given chance and sign of hesitation.
Overall this movie is a very good character study and brilliant example of questions being asked directly to the viewer without being answered before that. This piece of cinematography is a genius acting lesson and an ideal example of the classical regret and shamelessness altogether. And is all this circle of dissatisfaction and regret sane? No, it’s rather whimsical… After all it seems that men are whimsical even more than women. The process of interpersonal alienation has never been more accelerated than in the 21 Century.
yyanchev 