A Real Horror Show

Rating: 10/10 (26 August 2006)

I have watched this film on several occasions, from when it came out in 1972 up to the present day. I cannot remember a film a grim, unrelenting, and disturbing as this one. Each time I watch this film, I come away morally disoriented and in a dark and pessimistic state of mind. The world portrayed in this film is one where there is no redemption, no forgiveness - only force, self interest, dominance, revenge, and deception. In the midst of such a world, I find myself empathizing with a totally vicious and despicable sociopath - Alex.
Why? Alex is what he is; a character with a kind of brutal honesty. Alex is the only honest character to be found, and he is immersed in a world of people and systems that are not what they pretend to be, or are attempting to make him something that he is not.
In a world without any moral content, Alex becomes a sympathetic figure, in spite of his vicious and self interested brutality. One is introduced to hell and compelled to sympathize with the devil, since it is only the devil that is truly honest about his evil. Everyone else is either deceiving themselves and others about their malignant darkness or simply pathetic. Fortunately, Kubrick introduces periodic elements of dark humor to break the bleakness and hopelessness of the world that he is presenting here.
It really does not matter though. This is a world of the damned. The film ends without hope, but with only the sense that the same cycle of violence and revenge in a world of unredeemable creatures is condemned to continue.
A real horror show indeed.
So why do I rate this movie so highly?
Perhaps, because it is just too true.