The Products of Violence

Rating: 10/10 (19 April 2008)

The products of violence are not always easily identified. They seem to be easily identified when people point out the obvious, but that is hardly ever the whole story.
At first Alec is a very unlikeable character. A low-level punk who manages to commit atrocious acts of violence with his band of "droogs" and even keeps them in line with an iron fist. On top of that he doesn't go to school and chronically lies about his activities and whereabouts. Thus, it can be said that all he does is obstruct people within his own society. The finger of blame seems to be pointing at the one and only problem at this point - the problem is Alec and without him society would be better off. After one night of vandalism and mayhem, that inadvertently ends with a woman's murder, Alec is betrayed by his own gang and left for the arriving police.
The cure for Alec's recklessness seems to be on its way as he is sent to prison. At this point it is where many stories of this type end - the anti-hero recognizes what he did and now he realizes that he must pay for it. Kubrick takes his story further by introducing a new type of program meant to rehabilitate criminals. Alec volunteers with the hope that it'll work and he'll be not only out of prison, but assured that he will never go back in. Yet it is during and after this experience that Alec is given at least the same amount of abuse that he unleashed earlier onto people. Being rendered in capable of aggression Alec is left as a hapless victim for a society bent on violence as a way of solving its problems. Even his "treatment session" involves duress.
It is the film's ultimate irony that the violence that Alec unleashed earlier is what has seemed to prevented him from harm until he is no longer able to unleash it.
The film is quite long, but this is not a film to watch once and plainly understand. Kubrick was a master of subtlety and upon repeated viewings new things can still be discovered about his films and his complex themes better understood. --- 10/10
Rated R for violent content including rape. Ages 16+