What follows isn’t really a spoiler, since this movie came out in 1985, but I do freely discuss the plot of this strange, fun film. Thanks to reader Lawrence for the recommendation! And now…
Ah, the 1980s. I was born. Hair was permed. Cocaine was considered a health food. And you could apparently go into a pitch meeting and get a movie made by asking the question: “What if Dennis Quaid adopted an alien baby and taught it to play football?” (Items 3 and 4 may have been related, it’s hard to say.)
And from such humble musings was born “Enemy Mine”. It’s part Shakespearean war drama, part original Star Trek episode, and part atmospheric art film about landscape as metaphor. It seems to intend absolutely no irony, but plays now as a sometimes darkly funny meta-drama about the hubris and naïveté of America at the End of History, still four years away from the fall of the Berlin Wall and six from the end of the Soviet Union.
In other words: It’s legitimately hilarious to watch Dennis freaking Quaid kinda sorta fall in love with Lou Gossett Jr. in a rubber suit, literally tear a baby out of his body upon his death, then raise the baby and eventually save it from evil humans, but ALSO there’s an incredibly serious attempt at drama here that just reflects a totally pre-internet, pre-911 conception of what “enemy” means and how we might interact with them that’s actually illuminating and interesting.
(“Dennis, you ever wonder if, like, everything is a metaphor, then maybe nothing is?”)
If those last two paragraphs sound overblown, how about this piece of context: “Enemy Mine” was directed by Wolfgang Petersen. In 1981, Petersen was nominated for both the Best Director AND Best Screenplay Oscars for “Das Boot”, which is a literal WWII masterpiece, arguably the best film ever made about submarines (with apologies to “The Enemy Below”). Petersen followed that up in 1984 with “The Never-Ending Story”, a commercial hit and classic film that defined a generation of childhoods, including mine.
Then, in 1985, he directed this! This was perhaps the most sought-after director in the business at the time, and he chose to make this film, so let us not dismiss it either as unserious nor as niche. “Enemy Mine” is, in some sense, where we were as a people in 1985, and on that basis it’s fascinating.
Plus—and really more as a fun aside—the film was written by a guy who appeared uncredited in The Lone Ranger as a Sheriff, wrote this and a “Merlin” TV Miniseries that I also loved as a kid, and disappeared from Hollywood in the early 2000s, presumably riding a horse back to whatever logging camp or cattle ranch he rode in from in the first place.
(It’s hard to see in this pic, but the mustache doesn’t end until mid-shin.)
But so the details of this film’s plot are classic hero’s journey stuff: Dennis Quaid (hereafter: DQ) and Lou Gossett Jr. (hereafter: LGJ) are on opposite sides of a war, they crash land together, they need each other to survive and keep hope of rescue, and they proceed from a grudging respect to a deep devotion that DQ honors even after LGJ’s death.
One really fun thing about this film—and this is something I genuinely credit 1985 Hollywood for—is that they don’t waste time explaining things that have no explanation. Look, I enjoyed “The Martian” also, and that book is a feat of research and imagination, no doubt. But it doesn’t all have to be that! This movie is not actually about a war or a crash landing and rescue effort: It’s about two men—and LGJ is unmistakably a man, even in his alien-ness and despite his asexually producing an offspring during the film—who have every reason to hate each other coming to love each other instead. So they just don’t tell us about how they survive, and it’s fine!
There are a couple of dumb little gestures towards solving practical problems of life, but they (and the gags/set pieces in general) are the worst, most dated part of the film. It’s at its best when it just lets these two great actors butt heads and chew scenery. So many movies today go way too far down the path of explanation and waste time without actually arriving anywhere satisfying.
(Where do they get firewood? Or an axe to chop it? Or a lighter? Or food to cook on it? From the prop and craft services departments, you dunce. You ninny. You squawking rube. Just shut up and watch the movie.)
Now let’s be honest: 1985 was several eras ago politically and culturally, the guy who made “Das Boot” is probably not the most politically progressive dude in the world anyway, and writer-dude’s mustache above suggests a certain disposition towards liberal soft-heartedness and PC nonsense. It’s true that it’s completely eye-rolling that LGJ dies and DQ saves everyone including his LGJ’s child without getting dirt on his supple white skin or losing the feathery condition of his flowing hair. I’m so not here to defend anything in particular about the movie, and yeah, that’s partially why I’m engaging with it in a meta way.
There’s no “but” to that. It’s the truth of this movie. I still find it fun and enlightening to discuss, but it’s important to acknowledge this stuff.
(“Work with the ‘Das Boot’ guy, my agent said! You’ll win an Oscar, he told me! Guy’s got me in a bondage mask. This turkey better be a hit or I’m firing your ass, Greg!”)
The influence of Akira Kurosawa on this film is also unmistakable. It’s the combination of small, intimately observed moments with enormous landscapes and epic scale, connected by shots with multiple levels of action and characters observing each other from the foreground and background.
(We’re lucky this planet we crash-landed on has an atmosphere and water and food we can eat and trees we can cut down for—SHUT UP AND WATCH THE MOVIE!)
The above screenshot from “Enemy Mine” is a classic Kurosawa presentation, straight out of “Throne of Blood”. Two opposed figures sit at a fire in the mid-ground, spooky, atmospheric surroundings, the firelight throwing a warm, human glow on them that is the only color in the frame.
Another classic Kurosawa moment, with a character in the foreground literally turned away from camera and watching the activity of a character in the mid/background. This was used a lot in “The Hidden Fortress”, which inspired a whole generation of Hollywood films, including “Star Wars”.
A final Kurosawa homage, this one of a solitary figure walking against an epic, enormous background, approaching the center of the frame, giving a sense of isolation and helplessness amidst a landscape that towers over them. This particular shot has become so universally used and recognized that it’s hard to say it came from (or is associated specifically with) Kurosawa, but he uses it a ton and in the context of these others it seems like a Kurosawa touch.
The landscape in general is an important part of this film. It seems like Petersen was determined to make an artsy film, and honestly just kudos for getting these shots in a studio movie because there’s zero question that today this film would be 20-30 minutes shorter and most of the cuts would be static shots of beautiful landscapes.
(Wolfgang Petersen in the editing room: “God damn it, I’m sick of being ‘the submarine movie guy’! People are going to know this film takes place on dry land if I have to mail everyone who sees it a picture of the Utah desert!”)
On the one hand, I get it, I get it. They’re desolate, inside and out. They’re always moving upwards, climbing in unforgiving terrain. They must shelter in caves and emerge to see the vast, unforgiving sky only when the pain of their aloof interiority has grown too large to be contained even by the stone walls of blah blah blah.
(“What this movie PRESUPPOSES is… maybe nothing is the right color?”)
I’m not sure the landscape metaphor quite works, though, and it seems to fail in the way that most art films fail—by reaching for a metaphor that isn’t as solid as it seems and having it crushed by the strength of the grip. Like I guess I just think metaphors work when the characters understand them less, or maybe when they’re not a direct comment on the exact central point of the film that’s also being commented on in very literal ways by the characters. Subtlety, I guess?
The movie’s plot has one genuinely surprising and well-executed turn: DQ realizes they have to move, to give themselves hope, or they’re going to die eventually. LGJ refuses to go with him, and it seems like a strange decision, or perhaps bad writing. But then, when DQ returns, it’s revealed that LGJ couldn’t go because he was actually pregnant the whole time—his species reproduces asexually and spontaneously. LGJ dies, DQ rips a tiny alien out of his belly, and raises it as his “Uncle”.
(Literally.)
(No, literally. Dennis Quaid midwifes and raises an alien baby in this film.)
And from here, everything gets very strange and very too-much-coke-at-the-development-meeting. A voice-over explains that aliens age quicker than humans and suddenly its a teenager, he teaches it to play football (relatable!), they discover a camp where white human slave-masters are whipping other black people in rubber suits (bummer!), and then you blink and DQ is stealing a space ship from his rescuers to go back to the slave camp and save his alien nephew from some very unpleasant people indeed.
(“So do I never get to have sex, or what?”)
And of course, because this was intended to also be a big commercial movie in addition to the contemplative, intense art film Wolfgang Petersen clearly wanted to make (the source of its confusion/duality, no doubt), DQ totally saves the day, bum-rushes the slave camp and kills everybody, rescues the kid, takes him to LGJ’s home world just like he promised he would, and it all works out fine.
But the ending isn’t what’s important about this film. What’s important it: Think about what this says about enemies! DQ and LGJ start out as mortal enemies, but they are knowable to each other! They share a common humanity throughout the film, based on family and commitment and compassion, even though one of them is literally an alien.
Had their journey towards brotherhood failed—had DQ done something unthinkably uncommercial like sold the boy out and rejected his bond with his dead alien friend as a temporary alliance based on mutual survival—it would have changed the movie, but it would NOT have changed the movie’s worldview.
This film sees enemies as something intelligible, identifiable, and straightforward. That, more so than the cheesy effects or even the cringe-worthy politics, seems like the most dated thing about this weird, fun movie. I’m nostalgic for a world where things seemed to be clear and defined, where we had enemies who might become brothers in time, and we had movies to keep that hope alive. I’m not sure where that feeling has gone in 2021, but that’s the subject of another essay.
Well, that’s it for me for this week. I’d recommend watching this film if you like kind of hokey, early-trekkie, sci fi fare. If you enjoyed this post, please like, comment, and share it. I’ll be back next Sunday with another story!