Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

**It doesn't matter if it's Stanley Kubrick's best or worst. It's a movie that makes you think.**

Stanley Kubrick is one of those filmmakers who didn't make a lot of films. Over the course of his forty-year career, he only made thirteen feature films. Very little... However, if we look closely, almost all of them are familiar and immediately entered the pantheon of cinema. They are not perfect films, nor was Kubrick perfect no matter how methodical he was, and there are films of his that are unpalatable (I've already written that in some of them). But each of them, for its reasons, is its own, a very different work. In this film, he makes a case study around desire, sexuality and how we, individually or as a couple, deal with it.

The script follows a doctor and his wife. An apparently happy couple who, after a party where they both flirted with other people (without consequences), have a fight where she, perhaps to take away his self-confidence, confesses that she wanted to have another man, some time ago. The revelation leaves the doctor speechless. That night, he doesn't seem to know what he wants: he desires other women, but refuses their advances. But when a pianist friend tells him about a strange party, full of beauties, where he has to play blindfolded, he wants to see it up close. Yes, the party was a gigantic chic orgy, with touches of unholy religious ritual to accentuate the sense of sin and lust. Of course, the unwary guy ends up being discovered and unmasked… and from there, the film becomes denser, with the character increasingly afraid of what might happen to him.

The film makes us think a lot about sexuality, monogamy, the importance we give to marital fidelity. I don't know what it was like in 1999, but today it's common to see couples in open relationships, or relatively discreet saunas and swing clubs that throw liberal parties with some regularity. There is still a universe apart – private parties, organized by social networks and for guests only – and it is true that the rich and famous are much more demanding with the reservation of their intimacy, especially when they do naughty things. But what the film proposes to us is, not so much the refusal of monogamy, but that we think about the way we give up all other sexual partners when we really fall in love. The notion of personal sacrifice runs through the entire film (a woman who gives up an erotic fantasy for love, another who proposes to die in order to save an innocent, a man who refuses sex because he is married) and indicates that the best bonds we create in life involve choices and sacrifices in exchange for something greater. In fact, to be happy in a marriage, you need to keep your eyes wide shut to temptations.

With a very good and well written story, the film develops the characters very well and allows us to get to know them. For that, the film doesn't mind taking a slower pace that can leave some audiences exasperated. Decisive was the choice of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman for the main roles. At the time, they were Hollywood's pretty couple, and there's no doubt that Kubrick knew how to exploit their enormous personal and intimate chemistry, transporting it to the characters and the film. In fact, this may not be Kubrick's best film (that's relative!) but, for me, it's Cruise's best film so far.

Technically, the film has many positives. Kubrick gave an almost maniacal attention to detail and took his time filming. And we can see how each scene was shot in a detailed way, with the camera moving precisely, cuts surgically made, very long and very well edited scenes, taking advantage of the excellent cinematography and sets (where, of course, the mansion of the party stands out). Even more important is the way the director was able to work with the environment and the tension, growing and almost palpable. There is a lot of nudity in this film, including frontal nudity (Kidman herself did scenes where she is practically naked) and some sex scenes that, if not explicit, are very visual. Even so, the film is not, surprisingly, very erotic. I think the director didn't want sex to distract us or cut that tension he was looking for. As for the sound and soundtrack, I think it does its job well, but I didn't find it particularly remarkable.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999) – Kubrick’s final masterpiece.

A hypnotic journey into the hidden world of elite secret power. Kubrick subtly exposes the terrifying reality of secret societies, their links to sex slavery and pedophilia, not through lectures or obvious dialogues, but through chilling atmosphere, ritual precision, and subtle images. The danger is woven into every frame, visible only to those paying close attention. Most normies see an “erotic thriller”. The intelligent feel the danger.

Kubrick films orgies with the most beautiful naked bodies imaginable and masterfully makes them completely asexual. The nudity is clinical, geometric, drained of heat, a cold ceremony of raw, aseptic bodies rather than erotica. Sex becomes ritualized, commodified, and instinctively alienating. It’s genius level control of atmosphere.

The only other director who pulled off something similar is Robert Altman in Pret a Porter (1994), where he had top models walking completely naked on a catwalk and turned it into something completely asexual, just another absurd raw and sterile human spectacle.

P.S. A conspiracy theory claims that Kubrick was murdered right before finishing the final cut editing in order to replace his original exposé ending with a mindless final scene.

Physician to the well-heeled "Bill" (Tom Cruise) and his wife "Alice" (Nicole Kidman) are enjoying the Christmas season by attending the usual whilrl of social engagements hosted by his wealthier clients. Tonight they are heading to a swanky affair as guests of "Victor" (Sydney Pollack) but instead of just going through the polite motions of an evening, the doctor finds himself rolling up his sleeves and so leaving his wife to explore a little more of the party than she might otherwise have experienced. When they get home, she is distinctly unsettled and they embark on a conversation that shines quite a light on the somewhat pedestrian nature of their sex lives. Both have their fantasies and to be honest, they rarely include each other. Maybe an open marriage is a solution? Well they certainly don't discuss or agree to that, but upon his return to work he starts to notice women in an entirely different way to that he was used to. He's not just looking for an hookup though, and his interest is piqued when his university pal "Nick" (Todd Field) tells him of ultra-exclusive parties where everyone has to wear a mask and where more traditional morals are left in the car park. Thanks to "Milich" (Rade Serbedzija) he manages to procure the necessary costume and heads of to a remote stately pile - despite warnings from his friend to leave well alone, and promptly enters an environment that has something of the kinkily masonic to it. As he explorers, he assumes that his anonymity is assured. Oops, well that's where he was wrong and he is brought to book by their grand wizard. About to have to get naked, he is rescued by a stranger who offers herself in his place. He is warned to keep his mouth shut and sent packing, but an article in the newspaper a few days later causes him to confront his own conscience and his friend "Victor" about just what he had inadvertantly and unwelcomingly stumbled upon. Meantime, he has to go home to his wife who is not unaware of the changes in her husband's behaviour towards both her and their daughter. She appears to be content to simply imagine her fetishes, but is his more pro-active approach just another fantasy that was simply too good to be true or is he just emotionally out of his depth when offered that which he imagined he'd truly wish for? Kidman brings an elegance and sense of mischief to her role and Pollack also serves well as an enigmatic man who knows how to play the game and to keep his trap shut when required. Cruise? You know, I just didn't love him here. I've always found him to be one of the least sexually aluring actors - despite his heart-throb status. It's almost impossible to imagine the man doing anything so spontaneous as actually having sex at all, let alone amidst some caped strangers in a very high class brothel. His attempts to convey the conflict and sexual frustrations just didn't convince me at all and that rather let this down for me. That said, it's still a very stylish and seductive treatise on the corrosive influences on a marriage when sex no longers satisfies, or when temptation is offered in an unexpected and tantalising way, and the frequent use of just one key hit repeatedly on the piano has quite a dramatic effect at heightening the tension. What's also quite affecting here is the gentle lack of pointless dialogue. There are plenty of lingering shots; of people milling about as if they were admiring exhibits in a museum and of intercourse that you might see (simulated) on a theatrical stage that is perfunctory and completely devoid of passion. It's very sterility has a curious sexiness to it that elevates this from the realms of soft porn - with which it does skirt on occasion - and turns this into a psychological thriller the simmers quite powerfully and rather fittingly concludes in a toy store!