Eyes Wide Shut (1999) 159m
Q: How do you review a Stanley Kubrick film? A: Wait ten years.
Yikes. I'm not sure how many people are qualified to handle the critique of a new Kubrick film upon its release, but one thing is certain: time has proven many a detractor wrong. Kubrick's films have always confounded expectations, which is why inevitably they become reappraised and treated more generously. 2001 was not the cowboys-in-space jingoism that sci-fi films of the time were built on; BARRY LYNDON was more like a walk through an art gallery than a lusty historical romance; FULL METAL JACKET avoided the path of all other Vietnam films and spent one half of its time at boot camp and the other half in burned-out rubble. And even though I should know better, I've also fallen victim to my own preconceptions. I was crushed after seeing the long-awaited premiere of THE SHINING - it just wasn't scary - but went back for a second viewing nonetheless, and then a third, and then a fourth. It has become more insidious each time and has yielded a subterranean, primal quality that I find strangely engrossing. I figure the same will happen with EYES WIDE SHUT. The difference is that this time I was not disappointed. That is, I didn't have any expectations.
I'm not prepared to tell anyone what EYES WIDE SHUT is 'about', either storywise or in terms of concept. I think it's sufficient to say that Kubrick is at the top of his form - at the age of 70 he has retained the provocation and vivacity of his earlier works. But I wonder how many critics will go into theaters with not only their mouths but their ears wide shut also. Hypothetically: four people go to see EWS. One person enthuses about it afterwards. Another is bored senseless. The other two are simply confused. Guess which three of the above were silly enough to read tabloids, watch 60 MINUTES, look for gossip on the Internet, and end up with their own fixed vision of what EYES WIDE SHUT was 'supposed' to be. No, there are no hot-and-heavy sex scenes between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, and no full frontal nudity on their behalf either (it's with much satisfaction that I browsed through all these misguided rumors that I've been saving up only after actually seeing the film for myself). But you have to wonder how prankish Kubrick himself is in this regard - the film's theatrical teaser, in which Cruise wordlessly fondles Kidman before a mirror, is undoubtedly going to plant preconceptions in every viewer's mind. In fact Cruise and Kidman spend only a handful of scenes together: the storyline is concerned mainly with Cruise's own journey of discovery. His character alone appears to be responsible for the film's title, Kubrick's metaphor for those who walk through an uncertain world with eyes wide open but seeing nothing, or at least nothing they can comprehend. Cruise meets a variety of characters who are not what they seem: they wear masks, costumes, or wigs; they have foreign accents or ambivalent sexuality; they appear by chance and then are unavailable when he seeks them; even the city he lives in has a hybrid idenitity - for the first half of the film we could easily believe it was in Europe. He has elliptical conversations with his wife and doesn't know when his friend (Sydney Pollack) is telling the truth. Everyone in this film wears a mask, even when they're not wearing masks: Cruise's trademark grin is different this time, a nervous reaction that seems to be covering frustration or cold panic. Cruise starts investigating, and Kubrick's Steadicam sinuously keeps pace with him. Throughout the film he is primarily an observer - he encounters many women in various states of undress but is permitted only to look and not touch (two models at a party, a prostitute (and her roommate), a drug overdose, a corpse, a debauchery. This frustration is obviously piling up on him - the first hour of the film is shot in warm and seductive flesh tones - and even when he takes action he remains an observer rather than a participant. But, like Cruise, we will never know what the 'truth' behind this tale really is, and no doubt film buffs will be picking over clues for some time to come. It's worth bearing in mind, however, that Kubrick would not have wanted any one truth to emerge in the first place.
It's perverse that Kubrick should spend two years shooting a film that takes place over two days, but the results appear to be worth it. Cruise and Kidman have never appeared so intense. Cruise, carrying the weight of the film, does well in the preferred Kubrick style: the deliberately paced dialogue (each character takes their turn to speak), the way exposition is dragged out by characters who are nervous or awkward, the way one person's dialogue is repeated as a question by another. All of this makes EYES WIDE SHUT unique among other contemporary films that throw up their pop offerings on similar subjects. It is by turns playful, sensuous, menacing, funny, otherwordly, and elegant. It is a film that will get under your skin. It's mesmerizing just to watch these people acting (the well-publicized constant retakes eventually shape the mannered performances preferred in Kubrick's productions), including scene-stealing supporting roles such as the rental shop owner and the desk clerk. The fact that the married couple of the film are played by a real married couple also help give the film a little extra edge - that, and the knowledge that this was the master film-maker's final opus.
It's appropriate that Kubrick should go out with a deliberation on obsession. It's fitting too that the final credit crawl should be accompanied by a waltz, given that his most indelible cinematic image has been that of spacecraft gliding to the strains of Strauss. And despite the tentative plans for at least one further film, Kubrick probably knew all along that this was going to be his swan song. He died only days after screening his approved final cut. The abrupt, final line of the film can be read as Kubrick's last joke: he literally went out with a bang.
And ten years from now, I'll start thinking on what EYES WIDE SHUT is actually 'about'.
This might sound like the worst of cliches, but I saw 2001 at the age of 14 and it changed my life. Thank you, Stanley.
sburridge@hotmail.com
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