as good as they say it is, but i noticed something new

Rating: Null/10 (28 June 2004)

set in an unspecified future; features lots of violence and sex (controversial at the time, but normal by today's standards); raw looking; focus on youth culture and society, the individual; grips its themes with vice-like certainty!
yes, i knew all that when i saw it in the 70s. but what i saw in it yesterday that i hadn't before was that it's a satire on the welfare state. kubrick is having a go at the nanny state.
think about it - alex is tossed hither and thither by the powers that be (police, probation officer, prison guards, chaplain, ministers of the government, left to drift by his M and P - it's picaresque and the narration is reminiscent of something like Tom Jones).
made in 1971 in Britain, this kind of critique would have been intensely relevant to audiences. indeed, only five years later, the punks took off all over the world and, in Britain, they called for self-determination and pro-activity - the main things that alex is not.
it is the welfare state that provides the overall context for all the other actions in the film - it's the kind of government alex et al live under and which really creates the situations alex finds himself in. in this respect, the film is dated, given that welfare states are passe. however, kubrick has much else in the film that still stands up.