Viddy well, little brother. Viddy well.

Rating: 10/10 (23 November 2019)

A Clockwork Orange is one of the most provocative, disturbing and incredible movies ever made. Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Anthony Burgess' novel is a dark masterpiece that won't just let you have a apathetic stance while watching it; the movie is for some either highly thrilling or digusting - or both. The story is narrated by Alex, leader of a gang in a somewhat dystopian-futuristic Britain. Through what they call "ultraviolence", the gang commits various atrocities - their senses sharpened by narcotic induced milk. Kubric didn't refrain from using graphic representation to the many acts of violence commited by Alex and his droogs - this is why the movie remains controversial to this day. It's interesting how the dark nature of youth is portraited here. Alex and his friends do not follow any moral code or ethic principles stablished by common sense or laws; even when they have problems amongst themselves the only outcome is violence - it's a way of showing how primitive is a society in which the strong are the ones who can do whatever they want. After being betrayed by his droogs, Alex is caught by the police; this is when the story shows another side of violence, or rather a new source - "An eye for an eye, I say, if someone hits you, you hit back, do you not? Why then should not the State very severely hit by you brutal offenders not hit back also?". He is convicted for murder and sentenced to fourteen years. In prison he engages in religious activities, although his "evil" violent nature didn't really change - that comes clear when he pictures himself as a roman soldier during the via crucis. The movie comments on how the prison system tends to worsen the nature of a criminal rather than changing it - "Prison taught him a false smile, the rubbed hands of hypocrisy, the fawning, greased, obsequious leer. Other vices prison taught him as well as confirming him in those he had long practised before." Alex offers himself for a experimental treatment offered by the government. The Ludovico experiment promises to "cure" a criminal by eliminating his evil nature; the real point is that the treatment rather than causing a moral change in the character, it actually is a conditioning against any wrongdoing - in a way that the free will is taken away. Alex's nature doesn't really change, but since he's inclined to do bad things, his urges are surpressed by a terrible feeling caused by the treatment - "Choice! The boy has not a real choice, has he? Self-interest, the fear of physical pain drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. The insincerity was clear to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice". When Alex is finally released the world around him is not the same it used to be. Upon arriving home he discovers his parents rented his room to a guy called Joe, but he's unable to do anything beacause of the treatment. Alex is a fragile person in a ultraviolent world; that's shown when he's beaten up by the same tramp he's beaten in the beginning of the movie. Later on he's also beaten up by Georgie and Dim, his former droogs that he abused so much during his time as the gang leader; this time they're actually from the police and once again the violence from the state is shown. The movie portraits the rise of a totalitarian state; a state that takes away the violence from others not as to make the world good, but as to monopolize violence itself. The state took Alex's capacities of reacting whilst hiring violent members of society to its ranks. Every action has a reaction, everything you do comes back to you. Everything Alex did wrong comes back to him. In the final segment of the movie, he is rescued by the one writer he caused so much damage to. The writer and a group of subversive people plan to prove the government is trying to create a opressive state - as depicted in every scene after Alex so called cure. They try to make Alex kill himself by forcing him to listen to Beethoven's 9th symphony. Alex does not die and in the final part of the movie we see him being visited by the minister in the hospital; the minister tries to talk Alex into convincing the media that the government isn't up to anything shady. The young man's former nature seems to be back, as he pictures a scene in which his former impulses seem to be alive again, and he closes the movie with a haunting last line, "I was cured, all right!". This movie is brilliant in every topic it comments upon; The nature of violence, violence from the state and the rise of totalitarian regimes, the failures of criminal system and the nature of good and evil. Of course it is not a simple movie nor it is easy to sit through and watch; all the graphic violence displayed is not for everyone and it remains one of the most controversial movies of all time. However, it is a very interesting and important movie; Kubrick's direction is sharp and Malcolm McDowell acting is just superb. For everything it tries to do, it succeeds in a mesmerizing way; the plot still holds a huge analog value to our reality - don't let anything hold you from watching this.