Year: 1999
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Country: U.S
Language: English
Stanley Kubrick is one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema, alongside such greats as Lars Von Trier (Antichrist) and Orson Welles (Citizen Kane). He has a filmography which consists of the frightening The Shining and thought provoking 2001: A Space Odyssey. I have always thought that after The Shining Kubrick simply went crazy and lost his ability to make a great film. This belief led me to regard Eyes Wide Shut as a poor film, but recently I've seen it again and have a much different belief.
Tom Cruise is a doctor becomes obsessed with having a sexual encounter after his wife (Nicole Kidman) admits to having sexual fantasies about a man she met and chastising him for dishonesty in not admitting to his own fantasies. This sets him off into unfulfilled encounters with a dead patient's daughter and a hooker. But when he visits a nightclub, where a pianist friend Nick Nightingale is playing, he learns about a secret sexual group and decides to attend one of their congregations.
Eyes Wide Shut is one of the most controversial and debated of Kubrick's many films. Like his Lolita, made almost 40 years earlier, this film visits very sexual themes of lust and desire. It is also about sexual inadequacy and genuine human jealousy. Cruise's wife's secret, told by an incredibly acted monologue scene by Nicole Kidman, triggers every built up emotion inside Cruise and makes him re-think his relationship. Perhaps the best moral this film offers is sexual honesty. If you are upset, afraid, nervous, jealous then you should discuss it with the one you love.
The sexual content of Eyes Wide Shut is a little extreme, but not excessive or pornographic in nature. Kubrick presents sex and nudity in a manner that is more disturbing than erotic. In a way this film plays like a psychological thriller, reminiscent of Hitchcock's Vertigo. There is an underlying notion of danger and uncertainty in every scene where there is a nude woman other than Cruise's wife. The score adds to this uncertainty very well.
The infamous orgy scene shows Kubrick's re-occuring theme regarding the dehumanization of humanity. Sex is normally the most intimate means of human interaction, yet here it is reduced to a ritualistic, almost creepy form of gratification. They all wear masks, mainly because being seen in that room may have very negative social consequences. While there can be freedom in these masks, there is also great isolation.
In conclusion, Kubrick has made a career of upsetting the public and this film definitely takes the cake. It is controversial yet thought provoking and brilliantly made. Though it was fully completed after the death of Kubrick, it is more than likely that he would have approved of this film. There are many scenes from this film that are simply unforgettable, Kidman's monologue may be the greatest ever written in Cinema. Praise it! 5/5
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