The film opens with a dance that is not a dance, a movement that is not movement. The glances intertwine without ever touching, a play of reflections between opaque glass and shadows too long to be real.
He enters a room, but perhaps he has already left.
She observes him, but perhaps she's looking elsewhere.
The light bends, becomes liquid, a fluid that flows on the walls like time waiting to be understood.
The faces disassemble.
A man in a mask says something, but the sound evaporates before reaching the ears of the listener.
The symbolism multiplies and contorts upon itself: a door never opened, a forgotten glove, a cat that doesn’t exist but that everyone sees meowing.
The city transforms into a labyrinth, the streets overlap in a cartography that does not exist. He runs, but the floor follows him. She sleeps, but perhaps she's awake.
Is the dream real? Is reality a dream? Questions that dissolve before even being formulated. He knocks at the door of a mystery that doesn't exist. She waits for him in a place that could be anywhere.
And then, suddenly, the final transformation: the faces redefine, the silhouettes round out.
The tension softens and becomes lightness.
The protagonists glance at each other and smile with that familiarity that feels like home:
they have become Sandra and Raimondo after a few eclipses but many yawns.
And so the mystery vanishes, one laughs at what previously seemed indecipherable. The nightmares reveal themselves as gags, the symbolism transforms into jokes. He leaves the room and she exclaims: "Ma dove vai, cretino?".
The circle closes, and the labyrinth transforms into the living room of an eternal sitcom.
And you even read it to the end.
Bravo!! Well done!!
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Other reviews
By tobont
"Kubrick empties eroticism of the self's interferences, of the soul’s interference on the body."
"The thing we should do as soon as possible is fuck" — a line that sums up the film’s message about sacrificing metaphysical love for physical reality.
By Relator
Sometimes just a glance, that’s all it takes, to put an end to everything.
The dreamlike part of the film is fundamental to interpret it and like all brilliant films, it needs to be watched several times.