An adaptation of the source material for Eyes Wide Shut

To put it in a precise technical term, unscrupulousallowing the filmmakers to adapt the same source material as Stanley Kubrick. However, this is exactly what director Florian Frerichs had in mind (last supper) has been completed fantasy novellahis film adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s classic 1926 novella, which also served as the inspiration for Kubrick’s final film in 1999 Keep your eyes open. Frerichs’s cinematic interpretation of the story is both more faithful and more erotic than Kubrick’s. (Kubrick, for all his brilliance, tended to be aloof in his work, even when dealing with vivid subjects). Still, it’s hard to avoid comparisons, which will inevitably color your opinion of the film making its world premiere at the Oldenburg Film Festival.

The story has been updated to modern-day Berlin, giving us the chance to see eye-opening encounters like the first scene, when two beautiful women demonstrate the beneficial effects of sex to a man in a nightclub . The man is doctor Jacob (Klaus’s son Nikolai Kinski, who doesn’t appear as menacing as his father), and he and his wife Amelia (Laurin Price) Price) came to the club together. Phoenix). Although both he and Amelia attracted attention from the opposite sex when they went out, they dutifully returned home together.

But the experience did lead to them talking about their desires and fantasies, with Amelia admitting that on their recent holiday she had become remotely smitten with a handsome Danish naval officer. This prompts an angry and hurt Jacob into the night, where he experiences a series of strange, sexually charged encounters – the most notable of which is an encounter with a beautiful young woman on the street (No. La Islay) later visits a brothel and holds a private sex party where all participants are required to wear masks.

There are many fantastical scenes along the way, including Jacob performing on an opera stage and having blood coughed on him by other singers; and Jacob single-handedly subduing a group of attackers, at least until one of them stabbed him in the abdomen. It all comes out just as Schnitzer hoped it would – like an extended dream sequence in which many elements are sexualized, including the nurse in Jacob’s office.

The director, working from a script he co-wrote with Martina van Delay, made some major stylistic shifts, such as having Jacob suddenly break the fourth wall and, in the middle of filming, Later, address the audience directly. He also used colorful animation in a dream sequence, some of which was rotoscoped, which was visually striking but felt out of place with what had come before it. Also, the dialogue is in English, with only the occasional bit of German thrown in, which feels weird, like an old WWII movie.

fantasy novella It’s certainly appealing due to the mesmerizingly lurid nature of its source material, but it’s often reminiscent of the kind of soft-core porn that’s often seen on late-night cable TV, e.g. red shoe diary. (At the end of the movie, you half expect some thoughtful musings from David Duchovny. Instead, we get a quote from Sigmund Freud.)

Kinski is a compelling offbeat screen presence in nearly every minute he’s on screen, and his journey down the sexual rabbit hole is more convincing than Tom Cruise. His performance is one of the strongest elements in a film that never quite lives up to its ambitions.