The stuff dreams are made of

Rating: 10/10 (22 September 1999)

'Eyes Wide Shut' could be the best translation of 'Traumnovelle': one should have one's eyes shut to be able to dream. Kubrick gives his own version of cinema being the art-form of dreams, thus the unconscious. True, this middle-class couple is very common and so are their sexual fantasies. This perhaps explains the disappointment of many spectators. In a way, EWS is the opposite to 'A Clockwork Orange' where the hero was forced to keep his eyes wide open in order to watch movies. And true enough, his fantasies were not very common or civilized as the Harford's. The home movie Dr. Harford sees, when his eyes are shut, is always the same: a black and white clip of his wife making it with a stranger. The worse is, of course, that the episode never happened in 'real life'. Perhaps is she only taking her revenge because she saw her husband with a couple of beautiful girls.
He then discovers his wife is a complete stranger, a menacing presence, threatening his quiet existence. And suddenly, his life becomes a nightmare. Girls are HIV positive, or they OD, a father sells his own daughter to strangers, a pianist friend is murdered, he finds himself in the middle of a satanic orgy and, as in a nightmare (where you are naked among dressed strangers) he has to take off his mask. It's not important to know if the film is a nightmare or not. EWS shows the very stuff dreams are made of, which is to say, the very core of films as an art-form. EWS is truly a masterpiece. A very mature reflection on the moving image and its relation to our deepest emotions. The photography is absolutely brilliant: its grainy texture conveys 'life', as it would be experienced under the influence of a psychedelic drug. The technique, as always, is inventive without showing off its total command.