Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Spoiler-filled Analysis-

It was only in my last viewing of Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick’s most controversial and polarizing film, at Cinema Rendezvous did I realize what the film-maker was really on about. I believe that Dr. Bill Harford’s journey here captures man’s first encounter with Helen, the second phase of the anima archetype. It is in this phase that man sees women to possess no virtue. Kubrick also addresses sexual incompatibility and the need for communication in a marriage in the film. Additionally, he talks of the necessity for a man to channelize the Warrior/Protector archetype to prevent his woman, his anima projection, from feeling defeminised, and inadvertently him from feeling emasculated, when she compensates by projecting her own animus elsewhere. The film released after Kubrick’s death, giving rise to several conspiracy theories surrounding the nature of his death. One of them suggested that he was killed by cult illuminati.

I always saw Eyes Wide Shut as a psychosexual thriller that revolved around Bill’s drive for sexual retribution. While that is partly true, it is hardly his sole motivation. Re-watching the film multiple times helped peel off the layers and see that there’s far more to it. I firmly believed that Eyes Wide Shut pointed to Bill and Alice remaining oblivious to a seemingly conspicuous distance that had crept in between the two of them. This time though, I felt it was only Bill who was oblivious to the distance. And the causes for this estrangement seem to bring him at fault. His inability to sexually satisfy his wife, his non-possessive nature and his non-confrontational nature would be three to name. He remains blind to the effect they have on his wife and their relationship. Eyes Wide Shut might also point to Bill being blind to the primal, animalistic nature of female sexuality. But, more on that later.

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Wes Anderson is one of the few directors whose style of film-making I absolutely loathe. I took a liking for Rushmore but other than that, I found all his films either plain lazy or too subtle for their own good. I just couldn’t decide which. I never managed to find the motivating factor behind his characters and their actions. It echoed the experience of watching a foreign film without subtitles. But what’s worse is the distant way with which he treats his characters. Anderson writes damaged characters and weighs them down with heavy baggage from the past while he rolls on the floor laughing with his finger pointed at them. I don’t believe Kubrick or even The Old Mallick saw their characters with such iciness. While those two auteurs saw their characters through alien eyes, Anderson sees his through those of a heartless little prankster. Even crueller is the bright-and-sunny exterior; a clear indication that the film-maker takes pleasure in torturing his characters. To make a long story short, I rarely get Anderson’s films but when I do, I’m mostly appalled.

When Terence Mallick returned after a twenty-year hiatus with The Thin red line, I can only imagine how people must’ve felt. This was a different Mallick. He wasn’t just seeing his characters, he was feeling them. This particular trait was predominant in The New World and more so in The Tree of Life. As feeling became more and more abstract, Mallick’s films became more and more amorphous. Wes Anderson takes a similar turn with Moonrise Kingdom.