HW 1a - Existing film still analysis (DYM)

Enemy (2013) End Film Still Analysis

Initial Analysis

NARRATIVE

• In the foreground, a suited man is turned away from the camera; this has the effect of hiding his expression/reaction to the spider in front of him.
• In the background, there is a massive spider against the opposite wall; it is not in a position that suggests it is about to attack, rather it's crouched body language and distance from the man in the doorway projects the opposite emotion of fear; this fearfulness juxtaposes with the spider's powerful body and implies that the man's character is a more terrifying monster than the spider. 
• The spider's fearful body language is also juxtaposed with the calm nature of the man; the spider seems to symbolise something the man has done/said that is enough to scare this creature.
• The scale of the spider adds to the sense of hyper realism; the spider is not there in the real world. The contrast of the absurd against the real demonstrates the binary opposite between the normality of the suited man and the absurdity of the fantastical spider to contrast the two potential dangers (the spider appears unreal and is therefore less threatening, leaving the man looking like a more viable threat)
• There is a dull, yellow/beige colour palette as a backdrop, which compliments the bland nature of the man's life emphasised by his plain suited appearance; this contrasts drastically with the  spider's inexplicable presence. 

GENRE

• Man is standing in the doorway in a neutral position; this adds to the effect of shrouding his true emotions and connotes that perhaps he is not afraid of the spider/the spider is not a physical monster, but exists metaphorically; the use of signs to illustrate a mental battle in film is a theme explored in psychological thrillers.
• The spider is barely visible through shadow, the man's black blazer/dark hair also denotes darkness and the confined room is empty; all this suggests the themes of darkness, deceit secrets, that bad things often happen alone where no-one can see them; these are also signifiers of a psychological thriller. 

AUDIENCE

• The small, confined room adds to the sense of claustrophobia and tension in the audience. 
• The perspective is from just behind the man's shoulder, which means that the audience experiences the spider at the same time of the man, but likely reacts to it in different ways; this pulls the rug from under the audience, whose role as the voyeur watching a film from a fourth wall has been shuddered by the appearance of such an out of place creature, yet the man in the film itself reacts nonplussed. 

Director Denis Villeneuve

Character in Shot Adam Bell (played by Jake Gyllenhaal)