I’ve been on a movie watching spree lately, and this is one movie that was on the top of my list. A Clockwork Orange, directed by the legendary Stanley Kubrick and based on the novel by Anthony Burgess is set in a futuristic England where chaos rules and there are gangs of youth who go about assaulting, raping, murdering for fun. The story follows Alexander DeLarge, the leader of a group of “droogs” who pass the time by indulging in rape and ultra-violence. All goes well until Alex faces a mutiny, and attacks two of his droogs to establish his superiority. That night, while on a heist, Alex accidentally kills a woman and is then betrayed by his droogs and caught by the police. He faces life imprisonment, and acts as a model prisoner so that he can get a revolutionary new treatment that ensures that he always does good, and he can be let out of prison. Alex is brainwashed using drugs, and graphically violent movies into generating a Pavlovian response of nausea and sickness everytime he tried to indulge in a violent or sexual act. Alex is then used as a pawn in a political plot to overthrow the present government.

This movie focuses on a moral dilemma that is very important even today. If the only reason a person is good is due to lack of free will, is he really good? Is it right to give up our right to moral choice for the supposed good of society? This is applicable on a general level to the situation in the world today. Are we willing to give up our rights and liberties for a quiet and safe life? Will we let our governments con and scare us into giving up those rights that we have fought and lost so much for?

The movie is disturbing, to say the least, with joyously explicit scenes of rape, and violence, and copious amounts of nudity. However, the most disturbing aspect of the movie is that Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant and off-beat direction and Malcolm McDowell’s fantastic acting actually has you empathising with Alex, evil and brutal creature that he is. I’ve been reading up on Jungian psychology, and I believe that we see Alex as our shadow self, all the things that we aren’t, but we want to be, or at least have a morbid fascination with. Which doesn’t say a lot of good things about us as humans, but also fits in with the theme of moral choice. If good people did not have a brutal, evil, sadistic shadow, then are they really good? It is the choice to not become our shadow selves that makes us good. Although of course, that becomes meaningless considering most of us spend all our time ignoring, or running away from our shadow instead of acknowledging it.

The background score is another brilliant feature. Instead of the usual dark, mourning music used in scenes such as the rape scene and such, Kubrick uses pleasant, upbeat, even joyful tunes as background music, and it’s incredible how much of an effect this has on how we think of what we’re seeing. It is as if Kubrick is saying, I won’t help you decide if what you’re seeing is good or bad, that’s up to you. What is shocking is how much we let stuff like music or the mood decide what we think is right or wrong. The scenes don’t seem half as shocking, or wrong as they would if they were shown in the normal Hollywood way. I personally also loved the dialogue. A mixture of Shakespearean English and Russian influenced slang, it really suited the movie. And the narration could send a chill up your spine.

To sum up, I loved every minute of this movie, and this is one movie I’ll watch again and again. I’d like to watch this after smoking some dope, what a trip that would be. But this is not a movie for everyone. It could be seen as a glorification of violence, although I don’t share that view. And as Nehal puts it, this movie can be “scary.. very scary it is..” Not for those brought up on the usual Bollywood and Hollywood fare of moralising, and having the message chewed up for you, and ready to swallow.

In the end, this is a classic, timeless movie, and is as relevant and contemporary today, in message and surprisingly, in the style and direction as well, as it was in 1971. Kudos to Mr. Kubrick.

P.S: Any other Kubrick recommendations? I’m thinking of either Spartacus, or 2001