Abstract

The film Enemy, directed by the Franco-Canadian Denis Villeneuve, is one of the many examples cinema offers of the figure of the double. Among the notable works that address this theme, we can mention The Student of Prague (1913) by Stellan Rye, Vertigo (1958) by Alfred Hitchcock, or The Double Life of Veronique (1991) by Krzysztof Kieslowski. The protagonist of Enemy is a very particular case of the figure of the double as he is a split character who constantly hovers between the ambiguity of being a physical or a psychic entity. In addition, the fragmentation of the narrative line, the omission of information, and the strong symbolic load of many elements require the viewer to organize the events and interpret them. In this context, the present study aims to offer an exegesis of the film through the analysis of its narrative structure, the use of symbols, and the configuration of its protagonist, based on the studies of Juan Herrero Cecilia on the myth of the double, as well as some of the postulates of Jung, Freud, and Marcuse regarding the unconscious and identity.

Keywords: Double | alter ego | psychoanalysis | unconscious | symbol | cinema