Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

 “Please don't despise me!"

This is not the film I was expecting to see.

Around the time of the film's release I recall the critics were mildly disparaging of what they saw as a film about titillation and in which Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman exhibited suspiciously little chemistry for a married couple.

...All of which is utter bollocks, and a quick glance shows me the ritcal consensus has thankdully shifted somewhat. This is perhaps the pinnacle of Stanley Kubrick's career, a film dense with subtext far beyond what is apparent to me on a first viewing, and a film which actually treats sex as a serious part of life as opposed to something to giggle at.

The first half of the film is a meditation on monogamy vs polygamy, as the naive Dr Bill is tempted by various opportunities for extra-marital action while Alice confesses to her own sexual fantasies. The pivotal scene, a stoned bedroom argument, sees them both being somewhat naive and unwittingly purotanical as they skirt around the old gendered ideas that sex is something men, being active, do to women, who are passive. This is, of course, nonsense: even if we look at heterosexual coupling only, desire is no different between the sexes, just society's expectations. 

And then Dr Bill, constantly awkward with women, moves into the world of the elite, into what looks like a cross between a ritualistic sacrifice, a BDSM club, a religious ceremony and a dodgy secret society. There is much coupling, but Dr Bill is excluded. He, a medical doctor, is successful and well-off- yet he exists on a different plane from the decadence of the elite. And the scene where he is found out by men in truly terrifying masks is truly terrifying, as is the sense of tension that follows. So is the implication that a girl whose life he saved dies so that he may live- although he is offered a comforting fiction to believe.

The cinematography and direction is sublime, with wonderful use of colours to contrast the world of the mundane with the dark ways of the elite, and much in the way of disorienting use of the camera at appropriate momnts. The score, and that repetitive piece in particular, is not only very good indeed but perfectly integrated with the visuals.

There's so much going on here- musings on monogamy; the objectification of women; the intersection of sex with money and power; so much more. This is cinema of the very first rank.