Keep eyes open to see the symbolism

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Director: Stanley Kubrik


There are many versions of Hinduism and their search for the truth and attainment of blissfulness. The Vaishvanaites seem to think that the conversation between the charioteer and his Master encompasses all questions of life whilst the Shaivaites accept the union of the male and female counterpart of Nature as the way to reach peace. A different group of Tantric followers refer to a time when Shiva is said to be in a carnal embrace with Shakti as bliss. The lustful union of male and female is described as like a serpentine union that arise from the base of the spine to reach its peak as it reaches the brain to give a feeling of complete enlightenment called Kundalini. Interestingly, the medical caduceus uses the picture of a pair of snakes coiled around a twig as a symbol of a human body in perfect health!

The right-sided snake refers to the male component whilst the left is the feminine part. No, said yet another group. The left part refers to forbidden pleasures like flesh, wine and intoxicants. This group include the Aghoris who lead such ascetic lives amongst the dead bodies in Benares, feeding on corpses in the funeral pyre, smoking weed and splurging themselves with ash just as the loner Shiva is sometimes portrayed in certain Puranas!

The scriptures hint that this form of Tantric practices has arisen from the traditional Hindu cultures' peripheral societies, named the outcast and the scorned gravediggers who are accused as dog-eaters. Maybe, the writer of this story, which was actually written with the Viennese upper society in mind, in this film, though, is directed at the higher echelon of the community. He hints that, despite the seemingly aesthetic demure of their lifestyles, they still yearn for the clandestine deviant way of living scorned by modern society.

Star of Ishtar

This Stanley Kubrick's swansong (he died in his sleep five days after the last final cut) is rife with symbolism and discusses matters related to humankind's primal need, the act of procreation. The film is painstakingly slow but is gripping with its dialogue. The words are sometimes poetic, spoken slowly and calculatedly, making the audience second-guess what the next word would be.

Talking about symbolism, it is Christmas time in the movie, but instead of the Star of David on the Christmas tree, we see the 8-pointed Star of Ishtar, a symbol of the Babylonian Goddess of fertility, love and sexuality. She is said to have many lovers and was not too kind to them.

More about tongue-in-the-cheek references got to do with the choices of the characters' names. Bill (Dr William Harford, Tom Cruise) may refer to bills as in the dollar bill implying that money can buy anything and that everything has a price. We repeatedly see how he uses his money to demand services and products, as well as how he flashes his 'doctor card' to organise things. His wife is Alice (like Alice in Wonderland, Nicole Kidman). Like Alice in the classic, she is bored with life and does not know what to do with life. She is an art curator by training but a stay home mum by choice to mind her young daughter.

By virtue of Dr Bill's liaison with elite patients, he and his wife are invited to a grand Christmas party. Slowly the theme of the story unfolds. The seemingly perfect polished aesthetic life is marred with dark secrets as the host is sexually engaged with a young, nearly drug overdosed temptress. All turned out all right. Then Bill meets his old medical school drop-out friend, Nick Nightingale, a pianist. Slowly he is drawn into a spiralling scheme of occult practices and vowed secrecy.

Meanwhile, the bored champagne guzzling Alice is courted by a Hungarian prowler whose name Sandor just happened to the founder of Church of Satan's middle name, Anton Sandor Lavey! Symbolism again.


Later back home, Alice narrates a prior instant when she went all jello for a young naval officer. That starts a dilemma of sorts for the couple as they wonder what actually keeps a couple intact. Is it loyalty to each other based on society made arrangements and rules? Is the social pact a way to clip the primal, animalistic behaviour to kerb the indiscriminate sowing of wild oats? Are the social norms different for the females as they are delegated to caring for offsprings? Are they just to suppress the inner desires and just appear pretty for her husband and the society they live in? Does her role as a lovely object end after getting a good catch as her life is taken care of? Are the education and nurturing imparted to them wasted in that sense? Is having thoughts of sexual fantasy and infidelity equal to adultery? Can it be construed as being disloyal to the spouse? That is when Bill goes astray on a self-discovery voyage over the next couple of days.

We follow Bill's adventure of sexual desires, a secret society with occult practices and how the elites cover their trail of debauchery with wealth and influence. Just like the upper-class Venetian Society in the Italian Renaissance still wanted to join the festivities in the town with a myriad of cultures without exhibiting their identity. Hence, the masked parties were a rave. So, pervasive carnal treachery is not confined to the lower rung members but also in the upper crust, but they manage to conceal their track more quickly.

Interestingly, a Tamil song rendition to create the ambience of a spiritual Tantric practice when the secret society is in session. It seems that verses from the Bhagavadgita were initially intended to form the lyrics but was changed at the last minute.

Something revered as divine by our ancestors as they could not understand its intrinsically incredible powers of release and procreation, it has now evolved to become a pastime. The world has become fixated on it. They have no qualms of recruiting children of those inflicted with poverty and underprivileged to traffic them to satisfy the needs of the haves.

In the end, we come to realise that everything comes with a price. With the news of the mysterious death of a participant of the cult and a character afflicted with HIV and the threat of harm to society, it all seems not worth it.

Like in Freudian suggestion, the world is a balance between Eros and Thanatos. Eros being the life-giving one of love, continuity of life and pro-social action, whilst Thanatos is the destructive force.

Ref: http://vigilantcitizen.com/moviesandtv/the-hidden-and-not-so-hidden-messages-in-stanley-kubricks-eyes-wide-shut-pt-iii/