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Misunderstood
by (movies profile)
Dec 8, 2007
42
of
52 people found this review helpful
This is an excellent film. Sadly it has been misunderstood as an attempt at soft porn starring
two A-list American actors. Maybe because of the marketing which presented the 'sexiness' as prominent
the audience assumed they were going to see
Kubrick present them with a stylized, intriguing, masturbatory art porn movie.
The movie is a critique of voyeurism, and a critique
of the rapaciousness and abyss of desire. It presents
desire as something that people are addicted to, and
sacrifice themselves to, making themselves slaves
at the cost of their sane, normal lives.
The film slaps voyeurs in the face. A young attractive woman is shown nude but as still as a corpse. She is only unconcious from a drug overdose, but the theme of addiction is set into motion. Later she is shown as a corpse.
Nearly every character is searching for sex, except they are not sympathetic characters. The audience will not identify with them.
Just before a potential sex scene begins, Kubrick interrupts it with a phone call from a wife. Then
in a similar situation with a different prostitute, the
scene is interrupted by the revelation that the other
prostitute has been diagnosed as HIV positive.
Kubrick is slapping the viewer in the face with their
own voyeuristic desire to watch others copulate, and to engage in mental masturbation, and perhaps some movie goers even masturbate while they are watching
in the theater, or at home on TV or the computer screen.
What is deeply comical about Eyes Wide Shut is that
Kubrick is making fun of the audience by baiting them with the appearance of titillation that they are accustomed to seeing in really stupid Hollywood movies.
The sex club scenes are a way of making fun of the group aspect of watching movies in a theater of strangers who might all be sexually aroused together, but are so self-absorbed they don't even notice the absurdity of their participation in a group mental/physical masturbation and voyeurism.
Hence the title....Eyes Wide Shut. In order to watch
a movie the eyes have to be open, but many people
with open eyes do not see reality, they only see
the projection of their own brains, and organ that
weighs only 2-3 pounds.
A film is projected on a screen much like people
project the contents of their minds on reality.
Reality is not perceived it is only the backdrop.
The entire move is self-reflexive. Audiences often
visit a movie theater with the anticipation and expectation that will receive an emotional
stimulation, and hopefully a sexual stimulation.
This movie is a critique and deflation of those
crude expectations. |
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