As has probably become apparent through the emerging pattern in Film Light assignments, I absolutely love Jake Gyllenhaal. I’ve even learnt how to spell his last name without fail! I love the quality and variety of his acting portfolio, especially copious amount of smaller, independent films featuring him that tell unique and complex stories. One such film is Enemy (Villeneuve, 2013), which tells the tale of a professor finding a lookalike of himself, and delves deeper into the man’s life.

The scene I have chosen to analyse the lighting of is not really a spoiler, as it is such an isolated and relatively disjointed scene from the main story of the film. This is a dream sequence, and while the whole scene is quite ambiguous and intriguing, even to someone watching the whole film, I think the lighting says a lot

The scene itself is quite warm, with tungsten coloured lightbulbs visible in frame lighting the foreground of the shot, and a backlight in the corridor behind the subject in the frame. The camera slowly moves towards the subject, with the light bouncing off the white tiles of the wall right of camera. Just before we pass the subject, she begins to be more lit, specifically from the downlight of the bulb furthest from the camera, and most likely a light behind the camera. She walks past, turning her head with light reflecting off her bulging spider eye (it’s a strange film, but really good!). We then cut to Gyllenhaal’s character, waking from a dream in his dim bedroom, lit by the tungsten/yellow glow of his hallway and the street lamps seeping into the bedroom.

The whole scene is quite dim and soft, alluding to a mysterious tone, The way the light sources barely reach the end of the corridor masks the subject in a silhouette, giving off the element of the unknown, made into somewhat sinister through the heightened musical score. The whole set gives off a foreboding and sinister vibe through the lighting, not knowing what’s coming and being obscured by darkness creates a tone that keeps the viewer on edge. The dim lighting also allows the viewer to experience the surprise of a nude woman with a spider head walking past what we learn to be the perspective of Jake Gyllenhaal’s character.

It all culminates into one off-putting scene, which is really bolstered by the lighting, and I look forward to putting more of my lighting knowledge to practice in analysis in the future!