a demanding movie

Rating: 8/10 (26 October 2009)

Although the title is "Eyes wide shut", when watching this film, you have to keep your eyes wide open. This film is base on the novella 《Traumnovelle》 (Dream Story), written by Arthur Schnitzler, who Freud claimed had such an intimate affinity with. Kubrick had spent decades of time adapted the novella to the motion picture. With joint effort of two greatest minds, the film is among the most profound ones, so that requires great effort to interpret. In the very beginning of the film, Bill walked from the living room, through the bedroom, towards bathroom. This move provides us a clear establishment inside this New York couple's house. The view is clearly described by Tim Kreider as, "The paintings that cover the Harfords' walls from floor to ceiling (painted by Kubrick's wife Christiane) almost all depict flowers or food, making explicit the function of art in their environment as mere decor-art for consumption." Then followed, Alice, who just finished using the bathroom stand up, made her first frontal appearance. This obvious continuity between the paintings and Alice, combining the starting scene which displayed her naked back, implied that our main female character was also an art work that the main male character had collected. When Alice asked Bill why he wasn't jealous, the answer Bill gave is "Because you are my wife and the mother of my child." What he had in mind was that Alice was something he owned rather than the person he shared a life with. Alice talked about her fantasy to Bill that she was ready to give up every thing, including her family and her child just because of the glance of the naval officer. She was saying that in order to protest the Bill's ownership. This revealed more of the submissive position where Alice stood --- Always leading by the male. Her appearance was always associated with the mirror. As analysis in Lacan's theory:"The mirror stage is a phenomenon to which I assign a twofold value. In the first place, it has historical value as it marks a decisive turning-point in the mental development of the child. In the second place, it typifies an essential libidinal relationship with the body image" Alice constantly behavior of checking the mirror indicates of her loss of self-identification. She was familiar with being a wife and a mother---the ego characteristics required by the society. Alice looked like a serious person, wearing glasses, hardly smile. Not until she was on alcohol, pot or during dreaming, did the relax expression appeared on her face. From this we would know she repressed lots of her own desires, hide the tension, the anxiety deep down, so as to meet the demand of her husband and the society. However, when she was unconscious, she couldn't control of the desires and just let it out. The night, Bill came home from the orgy party, found her giggling during her sleep. But when woke up, she look very terrified. The transition from sleep to awaken is analog with the transition form unconscious to conscious. The four step of dream interpretation "secondary revision" could be applied to the dramatic attitude changing from being satisfied to being terrified. She feels guilty about dream cheating of her husband so she forced herself as remembering the dream as a horrific nightmare.
Bill maintained his dominant poison, identified himself as the role of the saver, using money to control people such as costume shop owner, the taxi driver and ultimately since he was the only financial support of the family, using money to control Alice. When he wanted to do something that considered as immoral or transgression, he start to searching through the unconscious to find the excuses to keep him away from being guilty. The fantasies of his wife making love with the naval officer occurring three times, each followed by the action of searching other women to fulfill his sexual needs, hooking up with the prostitute, calling his late patient's daughter who expressed her desires for him before and going to the orgy party. He needed the reason for the self gratification. And the idea of revenge to his wife's fantasized infidelity severed him well. From this we can indicate that Bill indeed is a very hypocritical person. He spared no effort finding ways to satisfy his id desires while his wife Alice tried really hard to repress it. I think the scene which he found that the mask lying on his pillow implied that he, not his wife, is the person who cheated and disguised as an honest man. Every detail in this film is carefully designed. The name of prostitute the "domino" is actually a kind of mask, which predicted the following masque in held in the Somerton. The password of the party is "Fidelio", which was the Italian for faithful. It's severs as an irony because using such word as engaging into an orgy. Also, Fidelio is Beethoven' opera telling the story of how a wife risked her life to save her husband in prison from death. It predicted the result that in the end Mandy sacrificed herself to protect Bill's life. It also was using stairs as a metaphor for social class and the dirt inside the upper ones. The higher you climb, the more bodies you might discovered in their closets. Just as the saying goes: "There is nothing accidental in Kubrick's film." Because of the films contains numerous hidden meanings and great complexity. People who watch the film at the first time often found it very confusing. Also, during the promotion, it marketed as an erotic thriller, therefore, for people who just want to watch celebrities couple having hot steamy sex on screen would be really disappointed. It's much more sophisticated and you would notice something new when you watch it again and again.