Rated X for excellent

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 2009)

With A Clockwork Orange (1971), Stanley Kubrick gave us no doubt one of the darkest protagonists of renowned film; this punk teenager Alex engages in acts of brutal violence ("ultra-violence") and rape. It's repugnant and I didn't have a lot of sympathy for him; he's apparently the worst kind of person, completely uncaring about the feelings of others, with little in his background that seems to push him into this. If anything, he's the one who's pushing. He likes Beethoven, indicating he's relatively smart and should know better. A Clockwork Orange is set in the future (when exactly, I don't know- it may be the present day by now). Is this really where the makers of the show thought we were headed? A place where it's just part of growing up for everyone to be raping women as part of everyday teenage rebellion? That can't be allowed, rape is too harmful a crime to society.
But then the movie shifts to examining what's to be done with criminals like Alex; after the boy is sent to prison for accidentally killing a woman, he's subjected to a new technique intended to make sex and violence physically distressful for him, and he is then released. One can definitely sympathize with the goal to cut down crime, but as it is pointed out in this movie, this doesn't make him good in his soul. And the movie makes an argument that this kind of psychological control is a bad idea. Prison, it seems, is a better though not perfect solution. The movie talks a bit about rehabilitation. Is the film's message that it's futile? That we need criminals and shouldn't change them? I don't think so, I believe in most cases rehabilitation works; but I agree with this movie that that might be better achieved through prison than psychological control and torment. This is the kind of movie that makes you think, that you can have arguments over, and that's what makes it a classic.
I can definitely see why this was rated X- it's fairly extreme in violence and sexuality. Even one of the victims has a room full of erotic art. The language of the movie is also interesting- with new words, you have decode it but it is understandable, reminding me of Shakespeare. All things considered, it's fairly horror show.