We are all victims of the modern age

Rating: 10/10 (26 March 2016)

I have seen A Clockwork Orange almost twenty times and every time it remains astonishing viewing. Though there have been gorier films with more surface-level shocks, ACO is still a provocative film almost fifty years onward. It is still capable of actually making people angry about its violence and its ambivalence toward human nature. Some people still find it sickening; I cannot say I blame them. The gang rape scene alone is still scary (I had nightmares about it after first seeing the movie), even if you never see any penetration. It's isn't scary because it's graphic-- it's the gleeful, unwarranted cruelty of Alex Delarge which is unnerving, how the thought of tormenting innocents is enough to send him singing and dancing in-between kicks to an old man's chest. Even more unnerving are the character's charm and humor which render him likable despite his savagery and sadism.
I think that's what is most disturbing about Clockwork-- not the violence, but the controversial statements on the duality of mankind. A rapist/murderer can be pitiable once he's rendered less than human by a government as power-hungry as he. A tenderhearted journalist can become a bloodthirsty monster who goes against his own ideals when faced with the man who violated his poor wife or when faced with an indifferent public he must "push" into freedom by any means necessary! The world of A Clockwork Orange only seems like an outlandish future nightmare on the surface with the kitschy 70s fashions and the surreal angles with which Kubrick films his English locations. Really, once you examine it closely enough-- the struggle between being safe but controlled by the state or free but vulnerable to the evil of unbridled individualism of people like Alex and his droogs-- you realize this movie from 1971 remains frighteningly relevant in the 21st century.