THE DOUBLE: GENRE

Virtually everything about The Double is doubled. The story takes place in a nondescript future/past that is part
utopia, part dystopia, with mysterious subways and other unpredictable spaces that are lushly beautiful and
threatening. Both James and Simon are interested in Hannah, who runs the copy machine in the office basement,
where James regularly goes to get a single copy made (another instance of doubling). As James becomes more
invisible, Simon shows up everywhere, seemingly much more than just an alter ego. Where Jamess world seems
to be a nightmare, Simons is like a dream. Oddly, however, James is the only person who recognizes that Simon
looks exactly like him, making for some very funny yet heartbreaking scenes.
Erik Alexander Wilson, who worked with Ayoade on the indie hit Submarine, shoots the film in an ominous,
shadowy darkness with a dulled palette and gorgeous lighting effects. The strong, quirky supporting cast
includes often bizarre appearances by Paddy Considine, Sally Hawkins, Chris ODowd, Cathy Moriarty, Noah
Taylor, Yasmin Paige, and James Fox as the Colonel, the company founder who James is desperate to impress.
Written by Ayoade with Avi Korine, The Double is a crazy, extremely strange, thoroughly engaging and enraging
examination of identity, of who we are and who we want to be, further establishing Ayoade as a unique auteur
with a fascinating take on humanity.
Ayoade and company constructed an entire
world within which the film now exists. Drawing
from a wealth of 18th, 19th, and 20th Century
fiction, the resulting universe of The Double is
a mixed bag of science fiction and
fantasy tropes that mirrored perfectly the
bleak, oblique chaos of Simon James' inner
world. "Historically, it's not something that's
ever existed and neither is it something that will
ever exist in the future," Ayoade says. "The
idea was to create something that looks kind of
obsolete and inescapable and had a sort of
dreamy, nonspecific quality because there's
something fable-like about the idea of a
doppelgnger. It's an inescapable thing and so
we wanted it to take place in an environment
where you're not being given a lot of signifiers
leading you to real-world conclusions."

Theres a fantastic bit where the sounds of footsteps dont really

match the people who are walking on screen, but it takes a while
to realise that, and then the sounds carry on after they stop
walking. Its so effective.
RA: Those things, yeah, we spent a lot of time on it. Again, because
its not set in the real world, I felt it couldnt be documentary sound.
On Submarine, we did no sound effects work at all, it was all recorded
at source, and this, every single sound was made afterwards. It was all
guitar pedals and echoes.

Next up we needed to make Wokingham look like this endless city where you could never see the sky. The
highest building we had was maybe four or five floors, and although it was shot very well we needed to do set
extensions for some shots to get that towering, oppressive and narrow feeling says Matt. Another tweak to the
set was the lift doors tormentors to Simon, but smooth and willing to James some of them just wouldnt
behave while filming. We altered them later, rebuilding and retiming them to get their character right.
Finding the right look for the computer graphics and interfaces throughout the film was a difficult task,
particularly for the regression analysis sequence. Everything had to have a slightly otherworldly yet familiar feel.
As Ayoade told the Guardian: "its like the future imagined by someone in the past who got it wrong.
There are plenty of other distinctive sequences, including the Replicator, a sci-fi detective show watched by
Simon, and a video game played by Melanie. The video game was designed by David Lochhead, while for the
Replicator Paul OBrien came up with some creative ways to get a really cheesy sci-fi film look, with the
sequence graded by Dave Ludlam and Ian Spendloff. Working on it as if it would be full screen in the film, Paul
filled The Replicator full of hilarious detail and little touches. In the end its seen on a small TV screen. We didnt
let him know that until hed finished, says Matt, but were hopeful of it being on the DVD! "The aim was to
recreate the look of 70/80's sci-fi, early digital and film optical effects using today's technology. This included
deliberately adding green fringing and drop out to scenes as well as more obvious effects such as lasers and
matte paintings."
"There's two or three moons in the sky, you've got glowing boomerangs and glowing shields and lasers, and big
haircuts," Whalley tells us of the sci-fi noir film-within-a-film. "Couldn't be any more different to the style of the
rest of the film. I don't remember Dostoyevsky having the 'space detective' element in his novella."

The Double it must be stressed is not set in a post-apocalyptic world, more a world that cannot be fully identified by
the audience, especially in terms of time. Occasionally objects (an Ambulance at the end) suggest the 1970s but this
is deliberate the underground, dingy cavern like spaces and tunnels where Simon works as a Clerk writing reports
for a human resources organisation that James Fox controls are claustrophobic and unnerving.

A Timeless Appeal
"It's like the future imagined by someone in the past who got it wrong," explains Ayoade. "So the world
of the film never existed and never will exist but it has that feeling of a bad utopian dream soured. Like
in the 50s, when they thought everyone would have home computers but they would be half the size
of a room. It's as if that came to pass."

The Dissolve: Particularly the design of Simons apartment complex. Its a North Korea where everyone has
the freedom to leave, but nobody chooses to.

Ayoade: Well, its strange, because one of the reasons to put the story in this specific world was to address that
question, Why dont you just go? It was to create that feeling that there isnt something better over there, that if you
just went a little bit over there, youd suddenly be in the Bahamas. You feel as though somehow there is nothing else.
In the same way that in an Edward Hopper paintingor anything thats framedtheres a sense that they cant walk
out of it. Theres something about trying to pin the characters in the world, so you dont say, Why doesnt Simon get
a better job? Or, Why doesnt Simon just move to a nicer apartment? It seems like there might be some nice real
estate over there So that was important. But its more that you dont really get the sense that someone is living it
up elsewhere. This is a really specific example for someone who hasnt seen the film, but the Honor Lounge doesnt
look like its going to be some utopian great place. Maybe theres some leather chair or something, but its still going
to be the same setup. Theres no great, better life over there.

OK, last question. Out of curiosity, why did you include all the Japanese pop songs into the soundtrack
of The Double? I was very intrigued.
Well, just initially, I saw The Blue Comets on these re-runs of all the musical segments on Ed Sullivan, it was on
like Sky Arts or something, and so theyd have Mamas and Papas and those 60s bands who I like. And then I saw
them doing "Blue Chateau" and I just searched them out. What I liked about them, why it felt kind of relevant to this,
was that heres a Japanese band who are obviously influenced by British Invasion bands who were influenced by
American bands, who in turn were influenced by black blues and RnB. So you kind of have a copy of a copy of a copy,
but its its own thing, it has a kind of sadness and melancholy that I feel the British Invasion bands didnt really have.
They didnt get melancholy until the mid-60s; early on it was quite up. Whereas, like "Blue Chateau", even when
theyre trying to be really up, theres still something sad in them that I liked the feel of. Then Shin Jung Hyeon, whos
a South Korean guitarist I dunno, I just sort of found that song somewhere and just really liked it. It had the right
lyrics, the feel of it was right.
And then the songs were used because I didnt want the film to be geographically placed in any waythats why
everyone in the cast uses their own accents. Mias accent is half-Australian and half-American, and she kept saying
that everyone was going to think she was just doing a bad American accent, but I liked it. I really liked that her voice
wasnt one or the other. So the Japanese and South Korean songs were just to have something that wouldnt
necessarily evoke this era and this time, to have this slightly other world.