Astonishing, but is there something missing?

Rating: 8/10 (5 April 2000)

This film, withheld for 30 years in Britain, and banned in Ireland, is finally rereleased, and five things are immediately apparent:
* That this is, as always with Kubrick, a stunningly beautiful film, with the stylised, futuristic, predominantly white set design clashing crucially with the very real, grim, abandoned 70s Britain, looking more post-apocalyptic than anything Kubrick could imagine;
* That the film is absolutely hilarious, for childish reasons, as caricature, as alarmingly prescient satire in this era of New Labour;
* That the film's 'ethical' difficulties arise from a Hitchcockian engagement with point-of-view, which points the blame on passive viewing (and, by extension our (non)engagement with society);
* That the film is gleefully homoerotic - check out the sly imagery in the warehouse fight scene between the two rival gangs;
* And that A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, for all its thrilling rush, and for all its showing up of our cowardly generations' cinema, is not a Kubrick masterpiece: whether the ironies are too broad, or the structure is too schematic, I don't know, but, unlike THE SHINING or BARRY LYNDON, Kubrick's major achievements, it just doesn't breathe. Sorry.