A captivating and often shocking social commentary - one of the best films of all time

Rating: 10/10 (6 July 2013)

To sum A Clockwork Orange up with mere words is to deem it in some way comprehensible, an action that seems utterly absurd when considering its content. From the almost nonchalant approach it takes to taboo subjects such as rape, to the astonishingly bleak and alienating setting in which the events take place, the film breaks nearly every social barrier with Kubrick's trademark unflinching nerve, rendering conventional analysis somewhat futile.
Alex DeLarge, the titular 'Clockwork Orange' is an unruly youth living in a dystopian vision of Britain somewhere in the future who spends his free time listening to Beethoven, drinking drug-laced variants of milk and parading the streets with his gang practising 'ultra-voilence'. His animalistic, sociopathic lifestyle is short-lived; he is soon imprisoned for his psychotic crimes. However, barely two years into his fourteen- year sentence, Alex is given an unlikely lifeline when he is offered freedom for taking part in aversion therapy known as the 'Ludovico Technique'.
A social rebuking, the film initially tackles the issues in youth culture, questioning – through extreme exaggeration – the attitudes towards adolescent violence and the lack of justice in society (one of the opening shots involves a tramp howling: "It's a stinking world because there's no law and order anymore! It's a stinking world because it lets the young get on to the old, like you done"). Especially today, in the age of the ASBO, these analyses seem eerily resonant. However the focus shifts therein, as it subsequently becomes a study on psychological amendment, exploring whether the act of 'change' can be inflicted upon one by a third-party, or must be a natural decision made by oneself. The priest at the prison, possibly the only relatable character in the entire film, acts as a medium for Kubrick to channel this message: "Goodness comes from within. Goodness is chosen. When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man."
Though it strictly follows the work it is based on - Anthony Burgess' novel of the same name (although it doesn't show Alex's final redemption as in the book due to all US editions omitting the final chapter, including Kubrick's copy) it still has the iconic director's personal stamp all over it, from its claustrophobic tone and lengthy scenes to its comic yet risqué and deeply experimental nature. The imagery, though beautifully surreal, is done with surprising minimalism; the set design is not overtly stylised - derelict apartment blocks and bizarrely wallpapered rooms are not overwrought or clichéd. Instead, Kubrick creates his dystopian nightmare by taking familiar suburban settings and stripping them bare, revealing their ugly foundations.
The score, powered by a Moog synthesiser, is unreservedly chilling, serving to invigorate the more disturbing scenes further with equally challenging audio – the famous opening shot of Alex's twisted grin as he sips a glass of milk surrounded by his boiler suit-clad cronies and an unusual number of female mannequins is only enhanced by the music, which offers the same stinging supremacy as the glare of our anti-hero. With every lingering scene, each standing out as a separate work of art in its own right, A Clockwork Orange thrives on its creativity and originality - it is written with enough wry wit to coax a bitter chuckle even from those who find it difficult to stomach and at times painful to watch: "No time for the old in-out, love, I've just come to read the meter". It crafts unusual and bizarre characters such as Alex's youth worker, P.R. Deltoid, and breeds its own off-kilter humour in the incredulous language (Nadsat, a toss-up of English, Slavic and Cockney rhyming slang). To argue that it obeys the conventions of other pitch- black surrealist comic sci-fi crime dramas would be ridiculous, simply because there are no others like it: it is the first and only of its kind. The only other work that draws any comparison at all is Nineteen Eighty-Four, but no adaptation of George Orwell's classic has even scratched the surface of the ground that Clockwork covers.
What A Clockwork Orange wants us to know is that conditioning a violent person to be physically unable to commit acts of violence does not make them a pacifist. Torturing a rapist until they gag at the sight of a pair of breasts does not make them reformed. Morals cannot be programmed, morality is learned and obeyed. Between them, Burgess and Kubrick have forged a frighteningly austere alternate world and an utterly terrifying central character who, in his transition from perpetrator to victim, is the puppet of the plot's central message. Some it captivates, some it disgusts, but whether it evokes sorrow or bewilderment, exhilaration or revulsion, it is irrefutable that A Clockwork Orange is an impossible film to shake - an unforgettable work of art which has truly earned its place in cinema's hall of fame.