Eyes Wide Shut - Stanley Kubrick (1999)

Talking about this film should be a real challenge for any lover of the seventh art... Well, it's definitely a big one! I eagerly and responsibly take up the challenge. Known for his elaborate and extreme symbolism, Stanley Kubrick surpasses himself here in a script that can be understood in several completely different ways, but also has a brilliant interpretation that ties everything together. The master built his project meticulously, with premeditation and tranquility, utilizing a prolonged 12-year period of inactivity. It took him 15 months of shooting on set (a world record for the duration), and the material recorded was practically re-filmed several times with significant substantive modifications to the original script, which led to major financial expenses exceeding the initial budget.

The result? A shocking work of art that sparked public debates and is probably the most controversial film production of all time.

In the basic narrative, with a strong erotic undertone, the film deals with couple problems, alienation, dissatisfaction, and uncertainty, unless, of course, the natural midlife crisis is the incriminated issue (thus discovering spontaneously yet another alternative study). The marriage between Alice (...as in Alice in Wonderland) and Bill (as in a dollar bill, i.e., a banknote) is not a chaotic pairing but a reference (in many scenes Alice is presented in reflection, and Bill often handles tickets and money, at one point tearing a paper currency in half). Together, Alice + Bill + a child, are an upwardly mobile family that cares little about themselves and more about their relationship with an environment that they want to be as selective as possible.

The parable of dreaming/well-being, with immediate resonances in the balances of freedom/ regimentation, love/compromise, or rebellion/passivity, evolves (as always) within the confines of the conventional mundane but also provides the necessary support for layered and carefully correlated subtexts. In the beginning, the scene with Alice undressing between a mirror and a door is significant. The framing with two columns refers to the Joachim and Boaz columns guarding the entrance to Solomon's temple (essential elements of the Masonic workshop). The overall suggestion announces that we will be following a journey into the occult world (between reality on the right side of the frame and its alternative on the left in the mirror), liberated from constraints (the woman's nudity).

It's a declaration of intent, a breviary, and a legend of codes that prepare you for the language that will follow.

The film continues in the same tone. The two arrive at a fashionable party where Bill is taken by two mannequins who offer him a sensual trip to the edge of the rainbow (...as in the Wizard of Oz), and Alice must fend off the adulterous assaults of Sandor Szavost (like the founder of the Church of Satan: Anton Szandor Lavey). A convoluted metaphor that involves interventions in the soundtrack, editing, lighting, and color now alludes to the theme of temptations and original sin, but the progression of dissecting the essential message increases geometrically. The setting of the gathering is also abundant in symbols that mark the path toward the underground areas of the story. We can discern the star of the goddess Ishtar (symbolizing sexual libertinage and opulence), the inverted pentagram (representing black magic), and an abundance of signs and arcana specific to certain initiatory orders (with a warning sense), all heralding the focus of the key sequence of the initiatory orgiastic festivity, of a regular type.

We have here a second story that is intimately connected to the first one, with wealthy people bored with their daily lives, eager for exoticism, excess, and debauchery. Although the film fails to provide a sufficiently motivated fresco on the screen, and their characters are imprecisely delineated, the explanations of their gestures seem solid, plausible... and familiar (who does not associate the image of success with that of carefree and immoral behavior?).

In over 20 minutes of the film, strictly dedicated to the third main story, the events take a turn for the bizarre and radical change of the rules, rhythm, and norms. This is the sublime part of the allegory, because the characters no longer have their own faces or attitudes, becoming an amorphous mass patronized by a single group consciousness, sustained by precise rituals meant to ensure the preservation of the attributes of the dominant class. The portrayal of an anonymous force, engaged in collective interests, as Kubrick shows us, is huge, tentacular, and discouraging.

The movie is a miracle in itself. If I were to give it a rating in terms of cinematic quality, it would undoubtedly be a top score; however, if I were to evaluate it as a spiritual, educational, and moral value, then no rating could offer me scores that match, because EWS is so loaded with polyvalent instructions that you quickly forget the need for any framing in standards and categories.

Sure, we can go to the cinema, watch the projection from beginning to end, and leave with the opinion that we have watched a tangled story, full of question marks says about us first and foremost. It tells us from the face how dizzy, blind, and deaf we are. How deeply we evolve inside a matrix (read matrix), in which those who make calculations with us have managed to imprison, isolate, manipulate, and annihilate us. "Eyes wide shut" explains to us some elementary truths that we pass by daily (but which you are a priori set not to take into account) and tries to indicate how we can regain our discernment and integrity. Eyes wide shut would like to make us open them...even if only for a single moment, but it cannot force us to do so...And if you left the cinema with the opinion that you watched a tangled story, full of questions marks and with an acceptable ending...it means that it did not achieve its goal in you.