"What we've got here is a failure to communicate."

Rating: 1/10 (17 July 1999)

In "Cool Hand Luke" Strother Martin uttered that truly memorable quote "What we've got here is a failure to communicate." Never has that line been more apropos then as applied to Stanley Kubrick's self-indulgent fantasy made public "Eyes Wide Shut."
Last year, filmgoers were subjected to Terrance Malick's long awaited return in "A Thin Red Line". This year it's Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut." We can only guess that something must happen to reclusive directors living in isolation that causes them to lose their once profound ability to communicate with their audiences.
In the last year, Malick and Kubrick have each provided us with nearly three hours of screen time filled with memorable, and often haunting, images. It has been as though their personal dream worlds have been given life through the magic of cinema, and tens of millions of studio dollars. For at least the last year, many of us have heard reports of how Kubrick subjected his actors to continuous rewrites and reshoots. We can only presume that these ongoing rewrite and reshoots where were the result of Kubrick's struggle to place a story to the images coming out of his personal dream world, both fantasy and nightmare.
We have learned over time that most successful films tap into our society's collective mass consciousness. Stories are told using a form of logic based upon our collective experiences to which most of us can understand and related. However, in "Eyes Wide Shut," Kubrick has failed to provide his audience with a story which has the requisite logic to connect his images to a world shared in our collective consciousness.
In "Eyes Wide Shut," it is as if Kubrick is telling us a story in a foreign language that we cannot understand. Imagine Kubrick's photography as the body language of the story-teller. Although we can understand enough of the body language to appreciate the tone of the story, without understanding the words we have no way of truly understanding the message contained in the story.
"Eyes Wide Shut" drops the filmgoer into Kubrick's reclusive dream world, filled with memorable images of sexual fantasies and ominous nightmares. Unfortunately for us, the story-teller has passed away and there is not a translator in site. Consequently, the film will likely only make sense to a viewer who lives life, like Kubrick, in their dreams -- with their Eyes Wide Shut.