Disturbingly funny; haunting

Rating: 10/10 (24 November 2000)

There's this one Tool song that has a lyric that goes "Do onto others as they've done to you." That lyric seems to fit the idea (not the moral) behind A Clockwork Orange. Before I continue with this review, I'd like to make it clear that I am a Kubrickian. I think this is his best film, though 2001 comes really close. Anyway, on with it... So, I'm sitting in my father's basement and its about two o'clock in the morning. It's in the middle of summer and my life has become victim of boredom in a vast teenage wasteland. I see this movie and I fall in love with it, so my life starts over again. This sort of thing has happened to me before, most recently with The Last Temptation of Christ. So, I planned on going on-line to discuss the film with some people I know. I then got the idea that I should read the book. So I did. Burgess' A Clockwork Orange and the Kubrick film ruled my life for a two-week period. Both are disturbing; both are funny; both are both at the same time... the book moreso, but this isn't a book review, now is it? It was even funny while watching poor Alex suffer the torture of being rehabilitated. Why it was funny I don't think too many people could actually say. It just felt so amusing to see this sick, twisted soul be tortured. After a while it makes you feel like a Roman pig, such as a Caesar (maybe Colligula), that just got done watching a family of lions tear up an innocent young Jewish folk. That's the strange thing about it, Alex wasn't innocent at all! Kubrick is like a god to me. His use of still frames with the eerie music of Beethoven oozing in the background... only to explode to the foreground at one point... is pure genius. His zooming in directly on Alex and his droogs, with an angle that may have the camera looking up or down upon him that's no wider than a centimeter, leaves the viewer uncomfortable at all costs. He's the twisted surrealist of the English language cinema... but he also has his head on his shoulders. Malcolm McDowell gives one of the finest performances of his time and of all time. I loved his character and his character's story. I hated him at some points, and felt sorry for him at other points. My own feelings towards him, the film, and the book haunt me to this day.