Monday, August 31, 2009

EYES WIDE SHUT (2000)

It was the last film that Kubrick had made and he died as it hit the cinema halls. The movie got lots of mixed reviews initially for the explicit use of sex in the film. Besides that the movie garnered lot of publicity for the steamy scenes between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Its not film for teenager or fresh collegian who like to see film for some erotic titillation but for the sound and mature audience who likes to explore the deep impregnable dark side of human nature.

‘Don’t you think one of the charms of marriage is that it makes deception a necessity for both the parties?’ said a stranger to Nicole Kidman in the initial party scene. What we call it ‘seven years itch’ or ‘excitement outside what is available’ but it happens with most of the married couples living Metro life. Wives like the slightest feeling of a stranger’s gaping just for charm and Husbands seek the pursuit of pleasure where the chance is available. Kubrick in his last film portrays the darker side of Human Narcissism by telling a story of happily married and economically well settled American couple. How their pursuit of desire outside their marriage either in dream or reality made their lives disillusioned is the central theme of the film.

The film is too long (two hour thirty minutes duration), too slow (stretching scenes) and missing the satirical vein of earlier Kubrick classics. On the contrary it becomes too serious and baffling one for the general audience to take the moral stand. But at the same time its film no one could treat and deal better than the genius Stanley Kubrick and it pays once you cross all the above mentioned so called flaws of film criticism and conveys the message with entirely trademark Kubrick subtlety.
Don’t watch it seeking easy pleasure for your evening.

Ratings- 8/10

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