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Behind Closed Doors: 6 Interesting Movies That Featured Secret Societies

The idea of secret societies just lends itself to thrilling cinema, doesn’t it? Clandestine gatherings in concealed locations, covert motivations for underground activities, betrayal and treachery lurking behind every shadowy corner – it is all fertile ground for compelling storytelling. Indeed secret societies have been the bedrock of gripping cinematic drama and thrills for a very long time, spawning movies that have spanned genre, style, and level of success. In more recent years, the use of secret societies in movies seems to have taken on a much more functional role, however – being used more specifically to highlight themes of social injustice, and corruption. These movies appeal to our more suspicious sensibilities, often reflecting the mainstream media narrative of the need to beware an enemy hiding in plain sight. With this message having reached fever pitch in the current political climate to the point of generalised fear-mongering and xenophobia, it’s a good time to reflect on some of the most memorable instances of secret societies gracing the silver screen, and examine what they tell us about ourselves and our world – both good, and bad.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

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Let’s be honest – Stanley Kubrick’s final film, Eyes Wide Shut, has two layers to it. On the one hand, it’s an exploration of the sexual relationship between a man and a woman who are committed to a marriage and family. On the other hand, it’s clearly a film about male fragility – in which Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) spends an entire night unsuccessfully trying to have sex with a variety of women, simply because his wife tells him she had a fantasy about another man.

Harford and his wife Alice (Nicole Kidman) attend a party one night, at which both are apparently tempted by other people. Discussing it later at home, Alice reveals to Bill that she recently fantasized about having sex with another man. This disturbs Bill, but he’s called away to see a patient. A sequence of events then follows, in which Bill is tempted by a prostitute, meets a friend and learns about a secret masked orgy, rents a costume and infiltrates that event.

The orgy is hosted by a secret society, however, and features a distinctly threatening undertone. Bill later discovers that his friend has suffered violence as a result of his crashing the orgy, and that a frightened woman who prevented him from being discovered there has died in suspicious circumstances. Bill attempts to investigate further, but is warned by various individuals of the danger he’s courting in doing so. Ultimately, Bill returns to Alice and confesses all.

The use of a secret society here is largely to symbolize the precipice upon which Bill teeters, as he wrestles with the fact that his marriage requires some attention. As he heads out, disturbed by his wife’s revelations, he spirals downwards into this swirling, heady abyss, in which he’s confronted by sexuality and eroticism at every turn – both emotionally intimate in nature, and of the anonymous variety. It is the element of unnamed, masked mortal danger that truly guides him however – as he arrives at a point requiring a decision. Does he continue downward into this spiral and risk his life by looking into this secret society, or does he return to his every day life and work on his marriage? Ultimately, the nature of the secret society is inconsequential in Eyes Wide Shut. It’s simply a narrative tool to get Bill back on the right track.

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