Traumatizing and Disturbing

Rating: 9/10 (17 June 2020)

There are instances where a film traumatizes me beyond beliefs, that makes me staying up late thinking about the deep and frightful trench of this human experience, and Stanley Kubrick's films never fail to enact that part of my psyche - to dare to provoke in me this dimension of human nature that we don't usually like to visit. And this film traumatizes me just like that. I was too psychologically affected that I did not bother washing my dishes and read my book before bed (my daily routines that I regularly enjoy). That is needless to say this film struck me to the core, and I am still shook by it. It is Kubrick's last venture into the study of humanity and human nature.
We the audience are embarked on a sexual odyssey with our protagonist to which we explore the sexual subconscious of the human psyche, represented through material events acting as archetypes. Sex is a lot of things; it can be marriage and fertility, the emancipation from virginity and empowerment of women's position in men (as the conversation between the Hungarian man Alice indicates), it can be solace and comfort for pains (Marion kissing Dr. Bill after her father's death) , it can be a mean for financial survival (prostitution), it can be kink (the two men having sex with the store owner's daughter while dressed in women's garments), and the masonic elites ritual performed in a dark and sinister proportion. Then there is the creepy mysterious soundtrack that I'm guessing was composed in two notes, the tune keeps ringing in my head as if a nightmare. The film leaves a lot of questions and hidden meanings that I am determined to muster out an answer and interpretation, but rest assured that I may probably will never watch it again.
Kubrick's films have always discussed radical and controversial topics which are visual literary discussion into human behaviorism and subconscious. Thank you Stanley Kubrick for everything, and I hope there are people like me who should praise and uphold his films and legacy, and to make sure they are way up there with the titans of art.