Kubrick's last gift to cinema lovers

Rating: 9/10 (23 January 2017)

Stanley Kubrick died four days after showing Warner Bros. the alleged final cut of "Eyes Wide Shut". Those close to him claim that he considered it his best work ever, like many great authors do in their old age. I can certainly see why Kubrick thought so (if he actually did): EWS is the absolute, perfect representation of his kind of approach to cinema. Disoriented characters, an eerie duality, in this specific case between the world of daylight and that of nighttime, broken pieces of dialogues, loss of control over one's own purposes. In one sentence, Bill is THE Kubrickian character. The story itself, another adaptation from a novel, is hauntingly mysterious, with its apparently random encounters of strange characters, from the menacing unnamed follower to the sketchy owner of the "Rainbow" shop. The night wanderings by Bill reminded me of a simple, yet smart film by Martin Scorsese, "After Hours", which could be an inspiration for some of it. Another engaging aspect are the many inner links between different scenes that eventually add up to nothing but give a weird sense of connection and of a bigger scheme behind Bill's actions: the one that struck me most was the "Place under the rainbow" reference made by the two models at the party, which connects to a locale under the "Rainbow" shop where Bill buys his costume. As in most his films, Kubrick has a taste for the esoteric, hinting at many things without explaining anything clearly, which is to me his most interesting style feature. Ironically, I think that in this film Kubrick was so explicit while attempting to show us his own way of cinema that it loses some of the wonder the viewer has in his most ingenious works, first of all "2001", where the idea behind the film is so hidden and unclear that to understand it makes for one of the greatest experiences cinema can offer.
Kubrick's style choices for this picture are more similar to those made in "Barry Lyndon" than it may seem, for two reasons. Most scenes are shot with the impression of using only "natural" light, meaning there is no stage illumination but only lamps, Christmas lights and so on. Christmas trees are everywhere and their multicolored lights take us back to the "rainbow" theme, meaning the bright side of the world, under which lies the darkness of raw desire (see the models...). Secondly, Tom Cruise is used more like a mask himself than an actual man: his expressions are recurring and almost unnatural, as he tries to find his way in the labyrinth of his perceptions.
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were married at the time of shooting, which reinforces the fact that Kubrick loved the interaction between reality and fiction. If in "A Clockwork Orange" the viewer actually goes through the Ludwig cure, here he has the opportunity of seeing unveil a crisis in a couple played by one of the most famous couples of the time. While I loved Cruise's acting, Kidman's felt a little too obvious and extreme, although I don't know how much of a fault she has in it, as Kubrick always had total control over his works.