| Overall Grade: |
A |
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| Story: |
B+ |
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| Acting: |
A- |
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| Direction: |
A+ |
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| Visuals: |
A |
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Bright Orange...
by Yahoo! Movies User (movies profile)
Nov 30, 2007
28
of
31 people found this review helpful
A grim yet powerful tale and perception of the human condition...
Legendary director Stanley Kubrick, as always, has brought us something that changes the audience's view of the world, bringing us a bizarre, yet enthralling tale of the human condition.
In the beginning of the film, everything is bright, colorful, odd shapes filled with witty, strong sexual desire in a wicked tastefulness. It all helps tell the story of what Alex is thinking or feeling. Everything seems to be in every way giving him some kind of wicked desire. Yet on the outside, he is very charming, precarious, well mannered, and is one who could very well slip as a snake through modern society striking eyes as he passes. The art direction and set design is nothing short of magnificiant, screaming metaphorical prospects.
Alex is the head-honcho of a gang which commits and feeds their gritty hunger mostly off of deep thinking and sensitizing rather than acts of impulse. But in his world as in ours, given the right situations or settings, little annoyances can either be brushed off with courtesy or met back with a hording wallow. Also, as he settles down to some of Beethoven's 9th, this is where he gathers on most of his precarious thoughts and meets his "divine" inspiration. As well as these moments of tranquility are dozens of hints at Kubrick's wicked sense of humor. At "home" he plays it bogart, acting the Ferris Buellar part with his parents and stays in bed most of the early daytime. He wakes up scractching his bum in his skimpy underwear where he gets a plausible warning from a strange man in his house, that he ought to loosen his pain stricken desire in order that he shall be set right for his life.
As he continues to feed his hunger and betrays his friends with uncanny events of "ultraviolence", he is convicted of murder and sentenced to 14 years in prison. It is in this half of the film where we start to see everything "normal" again. There is no colorful surrounding, only the dullness of wood or concrete in bleak British enviornments. While living in his own fantasy while reading the Bible and other books in the library, he is given a chance to leave prison much earlier in taking part of a medical procedure whereas he accepts despite the possible outcomes or after-effects of the procedure for a chance to be "good".
The experiment is as horrifying as it is for him as it is to us to watch. He is drugged and wears an inhibiting helmet with hooks that drag his eyes open and won't allow them to close. When he watches brutal clips of film that would normally excite him, he gets very terrified and very nauseous. He is forced to watch the entire video with his open and experience these sickening feeling towards violence and sexually immoral actions. But during one of these procedures, they play Beethoven's 9th in the background... And thus, what once helped to bear his ultraviolent feelings now makes him sick to hear. His brain will not allow him to do wrong. Like a drug addict on withdrawal, a shadow looms over him that he won't survive. After the procedures, he is released and you experience the strongest moments of the film, in which I will allow everyone to think about and interpret in their own way...
Throughout the film are plausible moments of double or even triple meaning in different dimensions. Many are very thorough quirks that Kubrick glantly pokes fun at. In one of my favorite scenes, we see watch as Alex and two girls eagerly dissect each other with Beethoven playing over... all sped up 5 times as fast. Kubrick creates tangent wormholes throughout the film that connect art and reality. One joke in the film is in a video store and you can eye a copy of 2001 on the rack. As much of a joke as it was, it also suggested that Kubrick's inspiration was no longer in others or other works, but from in himself. We are also led that it was Beethoven who had the pulse of the film. Everything that happens has his symphonic flurries in the background. As for the acting, Malcolm was one of the lucky few who recieved the part that he was BORN to play. The butler from The Shining also makes an appearance as well. The acting is terrific and bit of dialogue contains underlying statments. Stanley Kubrick deserved great attention for achieving a very difficult result for a film. Yet the only thing that held it back was it's offbeat bizzarness in some scenes. (Not that it takes away from the film, but only made it a bit less enjoyable in some moments) But I give great credit to the cinematography of this film, bringing us powerful explosions of color, to dull and bland hallways, to peaceful glides across the enviornment.
A Clockwork Orange recieved Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Editing... but won none. Out of all of those I would pick Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for 1971. It turned out as yet another Stanley Kubrick masterpiece underrated by critics but loved by the true audience... earning the position as the second highest grossing film at the box-office in history. It later won awards all over the world. Kubrick would go on to direct Barry Lyndon (1975).
This is one of Kubrick's best works of art that can be looked at by anyone and everyone will see something different. It pokes fun and symbolical meaning at society, politics, life, violence, sex, temptation, humor itself, and gives a grim yet bitter-sweet perception of the human condition. Kubrick blandly reveals to us of the b.s. of modern society and the never-ending drama of fame, also digging into Wizard of Oz about where we feel at "home". All of us have that evil little devil with a taste for pure violence and that the good little lamb in our hearts. Sometimes it is extremely difficult to resist temptation and other times we don't know when to stop. We also witness that we DO reep what we sow and revenge comes in ironic ways. The film, as in most abstract pictures, prove that in the end it is reality that immitates art...
Also Recommended: Lolita, Eyes Wide Shut
My Rating: A- An Offbeat, Majestic Masterpiece
-Jerry Johnston |
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