Still shocking after all these years.

Rating: 9/10 (21 May 2011)

The world or this site doesn't really need another review of this film. However after reading maybe 30 or more reviews here I have noticed two things which need a comment (skip to bottom). But I also just watched the video interviews (by the Guardian newspaper) in which Malcolm McDowell, Jan Harlan and Christiane Kubrick discuss the remastered 40th anniversary edition of Stanley Kubrick's dystopian masterpiece, screening at the Cannes film festival (May, 2011).
I saw the movie when it was first released and still remember the feeling of shock. It does traumatize you. But, as most reviews here agree, in no way does it glorify this kind of urban violence. Every gen-Y, Z should be forced to watch this when they hit 15, as a prophylactic against such senseless violence.
I have had the DVD since it first came out, but must admit I haven't watched it for ages and am not sure I want to. Yet, I give it 9 stars! How can such a great movie be one you don't want to watch? But it is true, as so many reviews here testify.
Anyway the things I did not find in other reviews: Kubrick is a master but Anthony Burgess deserves almost equal credit. I had read his 1962 book of the same name before I saw the movie. (Same year as movie of To Kill a Mocking Bird, one year after Catch 22 publication and one year before Pynchon's first book, V; whew!) Like the movie, it probably should not have worked. it uses an invented argot called Nadsat (a mix of Russian and English) which makes it tough going--and would normally make me stop reading. But it is brilliant and is simply one of those inexplicable works of art. (Read it; the other astounding thing, given its impact, is that it is just a novella that can be read in almost one sitting.) One understands why Kubrick wanted to make it into a film as soon as he read it. It was hard to imagine it being filmable but equally impossible to imagine anyone else filming it.
Second thing is that several reviews here falsely state that the film was banned in the UK. No, it was Kubrick who took it out of circulation after about 12 months because it was hugely controversial. He and his family were besieged by nutters at their house near London, and by endless telephone crank calls. Burgess also thought the film "so brilliant that it might be dangerous". It is true the police and government were pretty unhappy with the much speculated copy-catting by youth. It is arguable whether that was true but Burgess was amazingly ahead of his time though no doubt partly inspired by the Mod gang wars happening in the late 50s early 60s when he was writing it. Parts of the film look like they could be something out of 80s or 90s modern culture (eg. Tarantino).
So, an astounding film based on an astounding book.