Customer Reviews

The last words from a genius - By: Mr. M. A. Reed, 14 Aug 2008
"Eyes Wide Shut" is Stanley Kubrick's last film.

Like all Kubricks, "Eyes Wide Shut" is a film that appears on the surface to be relatively straightforward, yet isn't, if you want it to be. You take from it what you want. When I first saw it, I was disappointed. I was expecting genius. And yet, like the layers of a peeled orange, the more you look, the more you see.

Visually it's fabulous - the colours & textures of the film are sumptious. You can tell when you watch it this guy started off as a stills photographer. Like Barry Lyndon, each shot is framed like a painting.

In terms of plot, "Eyes Wide Shut" is fairly one-dimensional. On the surface it might seem like a fairly basic morality tale about the temptations of infidelity, but the translation of the title of the novella it is based on is "Dream Story" - little of "Eyes Wide Shut" actually happens. Hence then, the unusual dialogue, the bizarre imagery, & the strange-plot-arc.

You can pick this upin the unusual dialogue frequented by the longue lizardin the opening scene who attempts to seduce Alice (Nicole Kidman), or the gaggle of women who flirt outrageously with Bill (Tom Cruise), or the bereaved woman who attempts to seduce him. Bill literally existsin a world where all women are sexual, even those who are being examined for breast cancer suffer from an objection of their flesh, as Cruise examines themin a state of unnecessary nakedness.

If the film is 'real', highly unlikely given the circumstances, then, for example, why is everything so old-fashioned? Why is the hooker so... civilised, her dialogue so stilted, her language so repressed? Why do characters behave as if they were livingin the 1940's, not the 1990's?

However, there are also some moments of richness. Who else has filmed a couple applying deodorant or brushing their teeth? Who else has penetrated the nature of relationshipsin such a successful mannerin film? Eyes Wide Shut is about the way we act against what we think, about the essential deceptions we all carry within us & do not reveal, about the gap between our desires & our reality.

Hence the use of masks as a recurrent theme. Hence the fact that all male characters have two faces - for example, the masks, or the fear of losing their faces (many characters bemoan losing their hair - the frame around the face), & many of the female characters (Domino - literally one with two faces) are also two-faced. Decievers & decieved.

The other sub-plot is that of a world where the rich use & discard people who are of lesser importance. Bill is constantly buying people off, paying for services that are either not rendered, or over-paying for everything - the Taxi Driver, the Prostitute. This is probably something to do with the fact that wealth brings with it guilt, & by constantly 'forking out', he's trying to address the balance & pay off his middle or upper-class sense of guilt. With Wealth comes the knowledge everyone has a price.

To its logical extension, the people behind the debauched mansion sequence actually appear to gang-rape & drug a woman to death. Bill only survives because they do not want to kill him. Yet. If any of it is real.

So "Eyes Wide Shut". Not by any means an easy movie to love. But a great one. Like any Kubrick movie, it takes many repeated viewings & years of enjoyment to begin to unravel all the riches it has to reveal. A satisfying end to a career.

And hence the title Eyes Wide Shut is a deceptively shallow name for a film. But what does the phrase mean? In full knowledge of the darker side of human nature,in full awareness of the corruption at the heart of man (the use of money to buy anything, the corruption of power, the emptiness of sex which is a mere simulation of love), Bill / Alice choose to ignore the facts they are fully aware of, & try to live an ignorant life. In ignorance lies bliss. But it has a price. The couple no longer are innocent - the purity of their love has been broken. Alice's final suggestion is that the couple shag. Not make love. But sex, like base animals, like creatures who can no longer connect spiritually anymore. But do not yet know that all they are doing now is decieving themselvesin an imitation. An imitation of what their love used to be.

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My Eyes Were Opened.. - By: M. P. Williamson, 11 Aug 2008
Disregard the cheesy title of this if you please, it as a mere filler - something many seem to accuse this film of possessingin abundance.
I personally find the many reviews of this film almost as equally intriguing as the film itself - ideas & views are sparse & variedin interpretations, which I'll admit helped compell me to check out this cinematic feast for myself..

Having viewed it, I find myself stillin two midns about my recommendations towards it - on the one hand, it has some beautiful moments of real-life-captured-on-film-style dialogue (I am particular fan of the scene where Kidman becomes jealous over Cruise's trust of her, & how trust is what first begins to tear their seemingly perfect relationship apart). But the film itself was not without its flaws; whilst Kidman was fantasticin her role, Tom's performance seemed to varyin quality depending on the situation - his acitng ranging from decent & believably human, right down to gormlous git that would embaress Sylvester Stallone - all through the same scene.

Many would add the artificial streets into the criticisms, but I feel that it added a certain charm to it, a film that wasnt afraid to show its flaws. But the bit that really made this film crackle for me was the dialogue -in too many films today do we see dialogue being neglected for the visuals, but this film, I felt at least, was morein the leagues of a Kevin Smith movie. And that's no bad thing.

If you are open minded & don't mind a slow pace where the film will often step aside from the action for a sampling of a little more human interaction, then I would recommend this piece of cinema.