The science-fiction genre is more alive and popular than ever. Just last weekend, Gareth Edwards’ original blockbuster the creator opened in multiplexes across the country, while more artistic films enjoyed Animal And poor things Premiere at the 2023 New York Film Festival to almost universal acclaim. Now more than ever, science-fiction speaks to the particular moment of our time, when the rise of AI technology amplifies mankind’s universal concerns about identity, aging, and mortality.
The latest film to join an already crowded genre is Lion director garth davis, enemy, happening in the near future, enemy focuses on chicken (lady birdSaoirse Ronan) and Junior (after noonPaul Mescal), a young working-class couple struggling to make ends meet in America’s heartland. Soon, they are faced with a dilemma: Junior has been given the opportunity to join a prototype space colony and in his place, an AI replica of him will live with Hen to keep him from getting too lonely. Soon, Hen, Junior, and Junior grapple with the feelings of love, fear, and distrust, and things go haywire very fast.
In my conversation with Davis, I asked him what inspired him to adapt enemyWhy AI seems to be a major concern in cinema these days, and how his film is different, and surprisingly more optimistic, than other dystopian sci-fi films out there at the moment.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
: Garth, you’ve said in previous interviews what inspired you to adapt enemy There was an attraction between the internal and the external. How did you balance between dealing with the marriage situation as well as portraying the state of the planet in the near future?
Garth Davis: The architecture of it, connecting the personal to something bigger like climate change, is something that excites me a lot. Because if you get it right, there can be spirituality in storytelling; You can feel something that is not in words. There’s something beneath the surface of the film where you feel a deep connection with us on this planet. You get all these beautiful rhythms in the actions of the main characters that reflect the actions of the planet.
I think the thing I’m really proud of in the movie is that we did all the things we needed to do to move the plot forward. But what comes out of its creation is very cinematic, special and quite spiritual. It was an amazing challenge that inspired everyone in the film, from the actors to the cinematographer, and influenced all the choices we made. We were serving this great mystery, while also uncovering these deep emotional and metaphorical connections that lie just beneath the surface.
AI has been popping up in a lot of movies lately the creator To Animal For the latest Mission: Impossible movie, dead reckoning part 1. Why do you think this is such an attractive subject for films at the moment and how? enemy Add to that conversation?
with enemy, I use AI to show how Hen searches for her marriage in a really interesting way. We didn’t plan to make a film about AI, but it really enabled us to explore a relationship in a way that you normally wouldn’t. I think that’s what was so exciting for us.
Furthermore, AI raises questions about ethics, our responsibility towards sentient things, and our responsibility towards ourselves and our relationships. So there are a lot of common themes that really come to the surface because AI is at the center of the story, and it talks about spiritual levels of consciousness and love.
Additionally, the global warming aspect of the story mirrors the ticking of the clock and the sense of urgency that Hein feels throughout the film. at one point enemy, Junior asks her if she’s afraid of dying and Hen says she’s only afraid of death when she’s not ready. She doesn’t want to grow old and feel like she missed out on her life, that she didn’t live it the way she wanted to live it.
I’m well aware that dark, dystopian futures are overdone in science fiction, but I thought this was something that also felt very imminent. I feel like we’re going to be dealing with these things soon. This is going to become the reality of our way of living.
Did you look at other sci-fi movies of the past for inspiration? Or even like non-genre movies Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?Which takes a similar no-holds-barred approach in examining a weak marriage?
Sure. As I move forward in my life, I am collecting inspirations and stories. I guess, there are things that inspire me. I used to reference more when I was younger, but I don’t really do that anymore. Maybe it could be a painting or it could be something else or a life experience that inspires me.
But yes, Virginia Woolf It was definitely something that I brought up [during filming], I love movies where the acting is boisterous, lively, imperfect and brave. I was very encouraging to the actors to remember those types of classic performances. with enemyI really enjoyed the opportunity to bring back all those classic cinema elements that I grew up with and loved when I was younger.
Now everything feels so constructed, like everything was completely planned out before it was made. In a way, it’s not alive when you see it on the screen because someone has already figured out what it is. Yes, you have to make a lot of choices beforehand, but for me, when I go on set, I want to see something special, something that’s happening in the moment, something that I haven’t planned for or even To conceptualize that I had not even imagined.
enemyIt’s difficult to talk about its story in detail, but I think it was more difficult for the actors in terms of how they created their performances. What was your process in helping Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal play Hen and Junior?
It was probably one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done, but also one of the most exciting. There are two realities in the film: one is the reality that the audience is seeing for the first time, and then there is the actual reality of the story, which slowly unfolds throughout the film.
Because of this duality, it affected the choice of actors. This also affected the way we staged our scenes. So, for example, when an actor turns away from someone, they have the ability to reveal a secret to the audience that is not seen by the other actors. With my director of photography, Mattias Erdely, we asked ourselves what is the most exciting way to position the camera to suggest something that is not actually happening and to create the impression in the audience that they don’t know that. What is happening.
enemy It differs from other dystopian sci-fi films because it ends on a hopeful note. What would you like to say to the audience watching your film?
I want to wake people up and tell them not to take themselves or anything else for granted because they could lose it. We have to evolve, but we need to evolve in meaningful ways and we have to think about way We grow and change. enemy Ultimately it says that stagnation in any form is a form of death. If we don’t change regarding global warming, the planet will be destroyed. If we don’t grow in our relationships, they too will fade away. To me those themes are very relevant to the story.
enemy Now running in theaters across the country.
