a misunderstood masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (12 June 2002)

i often hear "i'm a huge kubrick fan, but eyes wide shut is just - insert abrasive adjective". while i appreciate the subjective nature of film, if you don't at least respect eyes wide shut, you don't understand kubrick. to those who complain it was too long: stick with something which has enough stunts to hold your 10 second attention spans. kubrick may be long, but he is by no means excessively so. i can't think of a single scene in eyes wide shut which would benefit from being truncated. and to those who try to boil the film down to one idea expressed in one sentence: that's not what he is about.. kubrick is intentionally abstract and soaks everything with ambiguity and meaning, indeed every detail is relevant. but regardless of what kubrick thinks, i believe he made a conscious effort in at least most of his work to get the viewer involved in thinking about things in a certain way rather than making an objective statement.
but enough ranting .. to the film: make what you will of the dream story in its schnitzler form, kubrick as a rule only takes the skin of novels then infuses them with his own themes: contingency and failure, dehumanization, human morality and the complexities of culture. what we have on our hands is no exception, but in contrast to the dehumanization, immorality and failures of government, war, or science, here he talks about them in the context of love, relationships and wealth, entities regulated via the more important yet less tangible complexities of social norms, power structures, and culture, all morphing invisibly beyond the control of any single hand to form a web of transparent forces which control our thoughts and actions. those who succeed in understanding and manipulating these forces benefit with comfort and power. everything has its price, however, and for power you pay dearly in the currency of moral integrity.