As I saw EYES WIDE SHUT yesterday, I thought of you in Italy, and I wanted to send some of my impressions of it.
 
Had Kubrick lived, he certainly would have fine-tuned this film (like most of his other films).  Running 2 hours and 40 minutes, it is too long.  Not
that it is incomplete, like Schubert's 8th; but he left it in a temporary, imperfect state.  Some scenes in the latter part of the film suffer from a lack
of editorial adroitness.  But for film historians, this will surely be a hotly debated issue.
 
As far as the sexual content is concerned, K uses titilation much like Beethoven uses repetition in his 7th Symphony.   But the film is never titaling,
as Beethoven's Symphony is never repetitious.  
 
Acting in a Kubrick film is unique.  The rules are subject to those of the world the director is creating.  Thus, when he does hundreds of takes, he's
not necessarily looking for the best possible take in an actorly sense.  He's looking for the best take which will fit coherently, or stylistically, in the
film.  Some actors are more adept than others at achieving Kubrick's goals.  Cruise, perhaps a limited actor to begin with, does his very best. 
Kidman and Marie Richardson are the most successful.  Sydney Pollock seems ill at ease.
 
Kubrick has no peer in the way he composes his characters' faces in the film frame.  His angles, lighting, and general composition are superb.
Marie Richardson's face in her monolog, Cruise's face in the taxi, his daughter sleeping - all are photographic images which remain in the mind.   
 
K's use of music is as wonderful as ever.  As the Schubert Trio was the catch tune in BARRY LYNDON, Ligeti's RICERCAR for piano is the catch
tune in EYES WIDE SHUT.  It 's introduced at the beginning of the sex cult scene at the mansion, and that experience is brilliantly referred to by
association with the Ligeti theme throughout the rest of the film.
 
In some ways, the richest part of the film is Cruise's re-investigation of his experience at the mansion the following day and night.  I was unprepared
for this.
 
As usual in a Kubrick film, there are the strange, quirky characters.  The Hungarian suiter at the party, the dead man's daughter (who's father
died in his sleep!), the Rumanian(?) at the costume rental store, the hotel clerk. 
 
It is a travesty that America was not able to see the original cut of the orgy scenes.
 
These scenes reminded one Italian critic of Fellini.  Perhaps.  But Kubrick is wonderfully sinister and typically ritualistic.  I found them beautiful.
 
Some American critics objected to the elaborate sets of the East Village of Manhattan, that Kubrick (again) was out of touch with America (still the
Pauline Kael influence from the 80's).  I found them extremely impressive and purposeful.
 
Others found the film anachronistic.  To be sure, a Kubrick film is like no other. In the sixties, seventies and eighties, we still had Fellini, Bunuel,
Antonioni, Bergman, Fassbinder, to name a few.  Today, Kubrick is a lonely island.  How refreshing.
 
What is important is that EYES WIDE SHUT is vintage Kubrick.  The viewer here can still experience unconscious realms of the psyche where few
directors have ever gone.
 
What is sad is that there will never be another Kubrick film on the way.