Film and Psychoanalysis:A Freudian Psychoanalytic Reading of Denis Villeneuve’sEnemy

Abstract

Psychoanalytic theory has had a significant impact on academic areas like film and literature.
Many filmmakers have stepped forward to focus their efforts and attention on this notion of
the human mind to make it an essential component in propelling their film into a different
frontier. Psychoanalysis is now so widely shown on television that it is almost a distinct genre.
The impact of psychoanalysis was frequently apparent in the character of malignant quacks or
hopeless idiots in early Hollywood, but after WWII, when psychoanalytic theories were more
widely accepted in America, they took on a new position. Villeneuve’s Enemy is set in the same
terrain, dealing with the pinnacle of the human psyche. The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal in a dual
role as a character who, plagued with dissociative identity and bipolar psychosis disorder, faces
a tremendous conflict after discovering his doppelgänger. In this regard, Villeneuve’s Enemy
does exercise Freudian psychoanalysis, delving into the importance of desire in one’s life.