by Stanley Kubrick, 1971.
Starring: Malcolm McDowell and a bunch of other people who aren’t as important.
Rating: 8.5/10, 10/10.
Allow me to vastly oversimplify the plot for you. Alex de Farge (McDowell, who gets an eight and a half on the hottie scale) is a very naughty young man, who, along with his gang of "droogies", enjoys nothing more than violence, rape, and murder—unless it’s the 9th Symphony of "Ludwig Van". Eventually, because of infighting in their gang, he is caught by the fuzz and convicted of murder. After serving out some of his sentence, he is put in a new treatment program where he is gradually conditioned to feel nauseous when exposed to violent situations, and released as "safe." Then more things happen, but I won’t talk about them in detail.
This film is a visual, intellectual, and emotional orgasm, though not necessarily a pleasant one. Does that make sense? I didn’t find it as difficult to watch as most of the world seems to, but it was definitely disturbing.
Visually, the film was stunning. The costumes are incredible (I WANT that purple suit!), the sets, the locations, the architecture even, all amazing. Unrivaled by anything else I’ve ever seen, with the possible exceptions of Moulin Rouge and Velvet Goldmine. Intellectually, the film is packed. I don’t want to talk about all the issues it raises in this review, for several reasons (I don’t feel qualified, I haven’t seen it enough yet, there’s not enough room, etc.), but trust me—whoa. Emotionally—well, any time anyone talks about the film they talk about how disturbing it is. Which it is. It’s not the easiest movie to watch. But there’s more than...er...disturbtion. There’s triumph, and rage, and joy (and Odes to it), and any emotion you could think of. But not overwhelmingly—or, I take that back. Overwhelmingly. But in as great a way as possible. At the same time as it is disturbing and overwhelming, it somehow manages to be horribly entertaining. Don’t ask me how. But it does.
There’s so much more I could say, but I don’t know how, I don’t have the time, I don’t have the room. Let’s just conclude with a perfectly acceptible one-sentence review:
The first thing I did when I got home from seeing A Clockwork Orange was go on eBay and buy myself a copy.