Eyes Wide Shut

Stanley Kubrick spent the last years of his life working on this film. And by the time Eyes Wide Shut went into general release in the United States, the director was already deceased, giving his final project the cachet of a farewell gesture-or perhaps a Last Judgment, since the Dies Irae from the Mozart Requiem can be heard at one point on the soundtrack. Yet its long awaited appearance turned out to be something of an anticlimax when most of the pre-release gossip turned out to be unjustified. No dazzling spectacle in the vein of 2001: A Space Odyssey nor even A Clockwork Orange, Eyes Wide Shut (made available here as part of Warner Home Video's excellent set of Kubrick's films) was first of all a fable for the approaching millennium, directed with a breathtaking désinvolture that still seems astonishing several years later. One day, I hope, Eyes Wide Shut will be recognized as one of the most beautiful works in the history of the cinema.Only in bad works of art or the artifacts of pop culture is it possible to make a facile distinction between the periphery of a work and its core. In an imaginative creation like Kubrick's last film, the limits of the core extend to its furthermost boundaries just as what could at first glance seem peripheral penetrates to its innermost recesses. Already, the opening shots of the Harfords in their stylish apartment getting ready to go out for a soiree go far beyond simply establishing a setting. The least that could be said about these powerfully iridescent, Ophulsian compositions set to music by Shostakovitch is how much more than functional they are: rather than simply establishing a particular locale, they serve to introduce us to a perversely enchanted world. The mise en scène is incantatory, but the spirits it is calling up are those of high-tech consumerism.In these images, the décor glows with a maleficent radiance, making of the Harfords themselves little more than the props of their own property. Small wonder that such a culture finds the culmination of its most refined pleasures in the celebration of a Black Mass at a mansion on Long Island--movie trivia buffs will not fail to notice a visual allusion to Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest--attended by the crème de la crème of the rich, famous, and powerful, a ritual which blasphemously travesties the Christmas festivities taking place at the same moment and which has striking parallels to the events of de Sade's The 120 Days of Sodom in both its literary version and its much later screen adaptation by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Salò o le 120 giornati di Sodoma (1975).In the milieu in which the Harfords move, reified to the last degree, success is all a matter of remaining on the surface of things, and Bill Harford has thoroughly mastered that skill. But the surface begins to crack open one evening when his wife relates a fantasy about sleeping with a Naval officer they had briefly glimpsed at a resort. Bill reacts violently to this confession, insisting that he has never had similar fantasies of his own. But he cannot exorcise the images she has planted in his mind and they soon begin to take shape on the screen. Moreover, this fantasy which increasingly obsesses Harford opens up to a larger world of collective desires underlying the beautiful realm of surfaces in which Bill wishes to remain happily imprisoned. Forced to confront that underworld by series of encounters involving the daughter of a patient, a prostitute, and ultimately a Satanist coven, he can only reject it as a mystery.The phrase "eyes wide shut" is virtually an etymological gloss on the word "mystery." In the words of Carl Kerényi (in his essay "The Mysteries of the Kabeiroi"), "The source of the term 'Mysteria'--as also of 'mystes' and 'mystikos'--consists in a verb whose ritual significance is 'to initiate' (µυeΐν), developed from the verb µύeιν, 'to close the eyes or mouth.'" He goes on to add, "the Mysteria begin for the mystes when, as sufferer of the event (µυούµeνος), he closes his eyes, falls back as it were into his own darkness, enters into the darkness." And is there anything less enigmatic about an audience sitting in a darkened theater, an audience which also could be said to fall back as it were into its own darkness, to enter its darkness--to borrow Kerenyi's formulation--watching this spectacle being enacted on screen?It is Bill's friend, the musician Nick Nightingale who tells him of playing at an event whose specifics are unclear to him, since he has to play blindfolded. Nevertheless, the few details he has been able to spy upon after the blindfold slightly fell from his eyes the last time he performed rouse Bill's interest, and he demands to go along to the event. When Harford, the non-initiate, violates this mystery, he not only disrupts its performance, but commits a crime which can only be atoned for by a human sacrifice--that of the young woman whom Harford has previously rescued from a drug overdose at the fancy party the evening before.Yet there is little mystery about this mystery, which continues in a perhaps more explicit vein the theme of archaic regression that recurs throughout Kubrick's work--perhaps most arrestingly in 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which modern technology is presented as an outgrowth of the anthropoids' fetishization of the black obelisk which has descended to them from the heavens like the stone given by Gabriel to Abraham enshrined in the Kaaba. Civilization is constantly haunted by the specter of the barbaric past it has never been able to overcome, and the cult in Eyes Wide Shut is only a final incarnation of this key motif which Kubrick employed here for last time. After that death had the final word: Acta est fabula!

Many reviewers have made comments on the script, soundtrack, artistic direction, and acting in Eyes Wide Shut. All are superb, especially the interior photography, but I would rather focus on the profound story-telling in this exceptional film.The plot of Eyes Wide Shut weaves together the path of man's fall from Grace, his struggle and journey to regain that state, and the amazing almost accidental way that Grace is restored to the human spirit.Tom Cruise plays Dr. Tom, the Everyman. Nicole Kidman plays Allison, his wife. In the beginning of the film she plays the Eve archtype, who stimulates the fall from Grace with a curious note of discord and jealousy.Tom, the Adam/Everyman character, has it all in his Garden of Eden. He has a wonderful medical practice near Central Park. His beautiful wife, who is shown in total naked innocense in the first scene of the film, manages an art gallery in SoHo. They have a multimillion dollar apartment overlooking the Park. They have a bright and lovely young daughter that loves them. They have a beautiful and to all appearances perfect life.They attend a Holiday Party at the home of an ultra-rich, ultra-powerful patient of Dr. Tom. While separated, the Devil (disquised as a suave sophisticated older man) asks Nicole to dance and within minutes begins to seduce her and try to get her to go upstairs and have sex with him. The actor who plays this Devil character was perfect. He was slim with a big head full of white hair. He wraps himself around Nicole Kidman like a slinky boa constrictor. She avoids the seduction despite being slightly intoxicated. Yet she does not escape unharmed for he has planted the seed of discord in her mind. She performed well and she would like to be praised for resisting this seduction, but she realizes her husband will never know.Dr. Tom in the meanwhile is tending to the herion overdose of a very high priced prostitute. Laying nude and unconscious, this woman appears to be the apex of earthly beauty. Dr. Tom revives her and treats her with extreme kindness and dignity and handles the entire situation very diplomatically. Again, in mirror image to his wife, he has performed beautifully yet he can't really tell his wife what he has experienced. They both leave the party with secrets they can not share. After smoking a join at home, Allison challenges her husband that he really does not understand the sexual desires of women and he really doesn't know her thoughts and secrets. The Devil has done his work! Adam is about to be handed the apple! Allison admits that she had a consuming overwhelming sexual fantasy while the family was on Cape Cod based on a military officer she saw eating dinner in a restaurant.Dr. Tom's fall begins here and boy does he fall! He journeys through the night-life of Manhattan but eventually gets caught up in the nest of Devils in their sexual orgy hideaway. His life is in danger and yet a beautiful prostitute saves him and he is allowed to leave. Later he finds that she has died of an overdose. Remember that a sacrifice is required when one falls from Grace, a maxim of every religion.In some ways his journey is like Ullyses trying to make his way home to the waiting Penelope. This is especailly true with the wild encounters he has with Manhattan low-life on his night's journey. He is almost seduced by a street walker who he finds out later has AIDS.He makes his way back to his wife, full of contradictions and uncertainties, but resolved to rejoin with her - to renew the emotional bonds that he lost during his night of journey into dark places.The film ends in a gigantic toy store, a place of renewed innocence, and when Dr. Tom asks Allison where to they go from here, she acknowledges that they move forward together for they were "lucky".It is this word "lucky" that resolves the story from a theological point of view, for they have been saved by the Grace of God. They don't deserve this gift,they really didn't ask for it, they just struggled in the dark like all human beings. Yet, in the end they are the recipients of this Grace.Stanley Kubrick based this film on Arthur Schnitzler's short novel "Traumnovelle", but surely Schnitzler based his novel on the eternal story of Adam and Eve, the fall and the redemption. This film that was judged obscene turns out to be sacred.

You may want to read viewer reviews before you watch it, as i did, to try to uncover the message(s) Kubrick is sending. You'll notice reviewers shared numerous different and interesting perspectives abt the meaning. At approx mid-point, Lots of naked women, and brief orgy scene glimpses amidst a secret meeting where everyone is masked. I've been intrigued for a while that some indy journalists who make documentaries about secret or satanic rituals or societies, often use brief clips from this film, of oddly-masked participants at the gathering portrayed in film. The music is scary as hell in a couple places, quite an effect. Several articles abt Kubrick indicate he was compelled to, or decided to, make addl edits to the film after filming, and then died several days later.I almost quit watching it bc it was so "dark" for lack of better words, but it was Kubricks intent to use such elements to create his message.Anyway glad i stuck it out. Kubrick was making a point.

I thought Kidman out did herself in this movie.

I liked the sensuality and the aesthetics, but I missed the plot, characters, storyline, theme, meaning, and message of the film.

enjoyed

This is a great movie for all the Illuminati seekers. Tome Cruise this is one for the records.

This was not labeled as a region 5 disk (unplayable in the USA)

Can’t say anything bad about this movie!

The media could not be loaded.  Ahora que se soltó lo de la Isla de Epstein, éste es un claro ejemplo de lo que pudo haber sucedido en esa isla, y todos los desórdenes sexuales que se desataban.En el video, explico las características técnicas de audio, y subtítulos.

Love this film. All ok with dvd and arrived quickly.

Film culte pour plusieurs raisons, pour son réalisateur, pour son couple sur le déclin à l'écran et dans la vie et pour son ambiance sulfureuse. A voir et revoir sans modération.

The language of the subtitles, described on the description on the amazon website, and the language of the real subtitle of the DVD are not the same...