Product: A Clockwork Orange [VHS] (1972)
Rating: 5.0
Disturbing
One thing that always gets me about this story is that it is largely a political satire but it attacks liberals and conservatives with equal intensity. Being the good liberal I am, I kept thinking we were going to learn that if Alex had been born into a less violent society, had more loving parents, had a pet puppy instead of a snake, hadn't gotten in with the "wrong crowd", or met the right girl, then he would suddenly transform into a sweet and innocent boy. No way. Kubrick does not give in the way Burgess eventually did. I think he is saying that Alex acts violently because he enjoys violence and that's it. Just like he enjoys sex and Beethoven. It is purely biological. The joke seems to be aimed at people who want to politicize violence when Kubrick seems to tell us that it exists beyond politics, psychology, sociology, and modern science. It's primeval and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it. Maybe we have to wait for that monolith to lead us toward the"2001" Starchild. This idea is more disturbing than any of the violent scenes themselves. It is almost as disturbing as the fact that a movie about murder, rape, punishment, and brainwashing is an entertaining comedy. I think Kubrick is pulling a Hitchcockian trick--if you are entertained, then you are implicated in Alex's crimes yourself.