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garyalexander-14001
Reviews
Enemy (2013)
Trying to figure out what you just watched?
I have just finished my first viewing and have some thoughts for those who are trying to interpret what is going on. This is my guess and after some thought I think this really makes sense of the movie.
I believe Adam Bell (the professor) is a made up personality of Anthony's (the actor). The movie is littered with clues throughout. I think Anthony desperately wants to be more than a third rate actor. His relationship with his pregnant wife is bad, she knows he's been cheating on her. When she goes to the school to see Adam she's disturbed almost to tears. This is not because he looks like her husband. Also, a pregnant woman isn't going to go across town over a strange guy calling her husband; no she went because she knows her husband is mental...that's why she was questioning him so much at home. She sees Adam at school and sits down next to him. Her husband doesn't recognize her...she's upset and the scene is tense because she now knows he's mental and faking being a teacher.
More on Adam, at the beginning, he teaches the exact same class over and over, has the exact same sex with his girlfriend over and over...this is Anthony getting lost in his Adam character.
The mom, Isabella Rossellini, is the key to understanding. She leaves Adam a message at the beginning that his apartment is crap and how could he live there. That is Adam's apartment...Anthony has taken to fake teaching and an apartment to research his character of Adam...mom's worried. Adam goes to the mom to tell her about his doppelgänger, and she tells him there is no other, she's the only mom, and he is the only son.
The ending: Adam has now completely taken over Anthony's personality. He dreams up that Anthony will take Adam's girlfriend for the weekend...this is all in Adam's head as he kills off Anthony. And this leaves Adam to enter into Anthony's life. The big clue is when his wife asks him how school was today...she knows that her a-hole husband is mentally gone and is picking up on the vibe of Adam...she goes along with it and likes the Adam personality better than the personality of her husband Anthony. She also tells him to call his mom...this is the detail telling you Anthony has the same mom as Adam. The wife knows Anthony and Adam are the same person, and Adam doesn't know it.
At the end, the spider from his dreams eats his wife, this is Adam/Anthony realizing he's mental and lost all touch with reality.
The Lighthouse (2019)
Was Tom a Hallucination to Pattinson's Character?
I have yet to read any explanations of the plot, but here are some of my thoughts after first viewing.
A lot of positive user reviews on IMDB don't connect w what I took from the movie. If you're looking to just go and expect to see a tense horror movie, you're going to regret it and feel like you are wasting your time.
The Lighthouse appears to be open to interpretation as to whether Pattinson is hallucinogenic from the moment he arrives on the island, or he's mildly insane after about 10 days, and spiraling further throughout the movie. Below, I'm going to share my thoughts about plot, so some heavy spoilers coming.
The 4:3 aspect and black and white is to help portray the narrow and isolated viewpoint of Pattinson's character...or Dafoe's, or both.
With about 30 minutes left, I had realized the fog horn is mostly constant throughout the film. I am curious to see on second viewing if the fog horn indicates reality is happening, and when the fog horn is absent, it indicates you are witnessing a hallucination.
I think Dafoe's character could be completely made up in Pattinson's head because it could be an amalgam of Moby Dick and Ancient Mariner poem that Pattinson's character could have read and inspired him to imagine what an experienced lighthouseman/ex-sailor would be. After Dafoe's amazing monologue as he's being buried, he comes at Pattinson in the house...I thought he looked clean for having just been buried, and this creates two opposing interpretations. If Pattinson hallucinated burying Dafoe alive, then that monologue delivered by Dafoe would have been made up in Pattinson's mind, and gives weight that Dafoe's character is a complete hallucination of Pattinson's.
Or the plot is just Pattinson's losing and taking Dafoe's sanity with him.
A third interpretation and I think least likely is, Dafoe is all alone and and made up Pattinson to cope with his loneliness.
The movie is crazy, and makes you think. Dafoe is a force in this...simply amazing work! The whole movie is a really good work cinema, but the scene at the end when Pattinson looks at the light is just pure cinephile heaven.
If you like watching great directors and enjoy multiple viewings of film and see cinema as art, then this movie offers a lot.