A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971): UK / USA

Reviewed by Gustav Orvefors. Viewed at the Santa Barbara film festival.

I don’t know why, but I love everything about this movie, the sex, the violence, the madness and the story “which is taken from the 1962 dystopian novella by Anthony Burgess”. Stanley Kubricks “A Clockwork Orange” challenged all the rules of both filmmaking, censorship and even the general view of mental health care and and is today appreciated as modern for its time.

I saw the movie at the Santa Barbara film festival in january 2012, and it was beautifully restored from the original film. It’s always wonderful when classics are showed once again for an new generation, and it makes me happy that when a masterpiece really are given the space to once again make an impression. If the impression is good or bad really doesn’t matter.

A Clockwork Orange is about the young boy Alex “Malcolm McDowell”, who lives for “rape, violence and Ludwig van” which is progressing through the film.. After a burglary gone wrong, he is seized by the police and are sentenced to prison for a long time. He gets an offer to avoid jail if he agrees to a newly invented form of rehabilitation, which he gladly accept in the belief that it will work. The treatment gives him severe nausea when he thinks about violence or sex (or listening to the “Ninth” by Beethoven), making him a defenseless victim when he is released and meets his old friends and enemies. The film raises questions about how far it is justifiable to restrict people’s free will to make them fit into society.

Something that is really significant about the film is the really wide shoots. They make all the violence and madness seem allmost normal and casual. The environment is very dreamy, and you keep feeling there is something odd in the world of the movie. I don’t know if Kubrick created the madness in the film as a reflection from Alex mind, or if it is only to challenge the common perception of what is normal and not. in which case it doesn’t matter, at least not to me. The movie get me thinking and that is something I appreciate in a movie.

Even though everybody have different oppinions about movies, I promise you that A Clockwork Orange will put a impact on you.

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Published:
02.08.12 / 12am
Category:
Films, Santa Barbara Film Festival 2012