Exquisite film package with disturbing contents.

Rating: 10/10 (8 October 2002)

A tyro film for Kubrick and McDowell -- perhaps a career best for both great film artists. Tale of a dark future where people have largely traded their freedom of thought for security (should hit close to home these days). Alex is the apotheosis of this: he is literally turned into a machine through pharmaceutical therapy, forced to "viddy" scenes of rape, murder, and fascism to condition him against violence. He also loses the ability to listen to Beethoven's 9th Symphony, the "punishment element" or, the tragic "weepy part", depending on your viewpoint. Kubrick's film is deliberately provocative, forcing us to identify with Alex although it unflinchingly shows his hideous acts and his stupidity. Marvelous photography, direction, acting.
One thing that strikes me in particular is how well Kubrick and his art men have achieved their goal of making the environments the characters inhabit reveal their emotions or tensions. Particularly memorable are the wasted theatrical environment that is the stage for the battle with "Billy Boy" and his droogs and the cramped, "futuristic" apartment Alex shares with his parents. It's crammed with smiley faced sunflowers and psychedelic wallpaper, every bit the degraded vision of the flower child generation brought with a push into comfortable middle age. Doctors and clinics are sterilized white, their plastic gloves and needles marking out their own self-conscious state of superiority and objectivity. And the final section of the film brings Alex through a succession of locations, ending up depositing him back "Home" for his suicidal attempted finale. Place and situation are thus shown to be very important or "conditioning" of the individual's actions, for although Alex seems to be a "hero" or "active" character, he is in fact only clever in that he can master many different situations (the streets, prison, clinics) by adapting himself to his present circumstances and surroundings, whatever they may be. This places him, in the final situations, as the pawn of situations and people outside his control.
Striking, unforgettable, infinitely rewatchable.