A Clockwork Orange

“I was cured, all right.” This film completely deserves the hype it gets. After watching it I can finally say that Kubrick really was a genius. The first thing I loved was the structure. The film is basically split into three acts that are all around the same length and it works perfectly. The first act introduces Alex and his world. You see how fucked up he is and how casually he commits all these crimes. Then he gets caught and everything changes. The second act is about prison and the experiment that is supposed to “cure” him. Then in the third act he returns to society and ends up almost back where he started. One thing I really loved was the cinematography. Through the alienation effect everything feels weirdly fresh. Normal scenes feel much more important than they actually are. Even something as simple as Alex apologizing to his mom suddenly feels deeper and makes you think about what’s actually happening. The camera work is also insane. I already thought 2001 had some of the best cinematography ever but honestly I think A Clockwork Orange might be even better. The symmetry in this film is just perfect. Also I loved how Kubrick made us sympathize with Alex in so many different ways. First of all, he’s almost always on screen, so we naturally build a strong connection with him. Secondly, he often talks directly to us through voice-over and calls us his friends, which makes us sympathize with him even when we don’t realize it. And lastly, there are several shots where we see the world directly through Alex’s eyes. It puts us into his perspective and makes us feel even closer to him as a character. The crazy thing is that Kubrick manages to do all this while never hiding how horrible Alex actually is. The ending was probably my favorite part. It hits so hard because literally nothing changes. The government isn’t punished and doesn’t learn anything. Society doesn’t learn anything. Alex doesn’t learn anything either. In the final scene it’s pretty obvious that Alex is “cured”, but not in the way the government wanted. He’s cured from the conditioning and is basically back to being the same person he was at the start of the film. The cycle just continues. I loved this ending because it feels so cynical. Nobody wins. Nobody changes. Nothing gets better.