Rings true to the very core

Rating: 10/10 (23 June 2006)

This controversial film is been called out for a variety of reasons here and elsewhere. Its vision has been questioned, its adherence to Burgess' source material has been ridiculed, and its sex/violence has been called gratuitous, among many other things. One reviewer here states that "art is the antithesis of violence".
I couldn't disagree more. To me, art is the expression of inner truth. Inner truth is singular to the individual, yet universal to a world that discards its own pretensions and value judgments in a sincere attempt to cathect. In general, the presentation of such art in our world is shaded, subtly and otherwise, by the artist's sense of gain/loss and right/wrong that is dictated by the outer world's expectations.
In Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange", there is no such shading - Alex's world is strikingly white-hot in its brilliance and in its pin-spot focus. This film presents its world simply as it is, as well as the characters who inhabit it. Episodes of sex, violence, tenderness, delusion, and manipulation are shown as clear-as-light, deep-focus images of the continuous whole. There is nothing false here - nothing. And accordingly, the impact of the film rips to the core of the viewer's own sense of inner truth.
To quote the shopworn phrase, they don't make movies like this any more, and even for its time, this film stands out as a staggering accomplishment.
Let it take you.