A Clockwork Orange

One of the best 75 films I’ve ever seen.* A Clockwork Orange*… a film my 13-year-old eyes despised. I hated this movie as if it were the very incarnation of sin itself. What I perceived back then was a complete glorification of evil and violence. Of all the wickedness in this world. Today, I return to this film. Not out of pleasure, but because I believe my eyes and mind are finally ready. Ready to analyze and understand every detail Kubrick left for us. Every detail I missed, every scene I did not feel, every musical piece I could not comprehend. Simply, to understand the film in its absolute entirety. Stanley Kubrick is without a doubt one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. His ability to create such a dark, unique, and unrepeatable atmosphere is something everyone desires but few ever achieve. And that atmosphere is not only crafted through his majestic production design. The brutalist and minimalist structures resemble those of an oppressive government, where art and humanity no longer exist. Everything is perfectly designed and in order, except for one thing. Violence and suffering are the only human traces visible throughout the film. Despite all the control and the illusion of perfection, those two elements persist, and because no other human emotions remain, they stand out even more. They create that meticulously chaotic environment, as if we were witnessing hell itself. Alex, portrayed by Malcolm McDowell, is one of the most iconic characters in film history. Not only because of his peculiar way of interacting with the world around him, but also because of how he perceives it. Throughout the film, he narrates his thoughts on what happens to him. Thanks to this, we can enter his mind, understand him, see the world through his eyes. Feel his suffering. A perfectly constructed psychopath who slowly deteriorates as the film progresses. His sins catch up to him, and even though he becomes a changed man, that change is forced. Did he want to change? Yes. But he did not change, he was changed. The perfectly ordered society wanted Alex to become just another obedient citizen of its flawless system, a man spiritually destroyed. A man who, sadly, was never going to change. A Clockwork Orange is monumental, a historical piece for humanity. As much as it may seem like the story of a madman lost in violence and atrocities, it goes far beyond that. It is an analysis of the human condition. A piece that feels like one of the most important things ever created by mankind. As if its mere existence emanated an aura that one can sense from afar, realizing you are witnessing one of the most perfect creations ever conceived. From the mise-en-scène to the editing, everything is flawlessly designed. Kubrick not only shows us the evil within man, but also the corruption of a society that seeks to redeem him without understanding the true meaning of redemption. He makes us reflect on freedom as a divine gift: without the ability to choose evil, goodness loses its essence. In his supposed purification, Alex is stripped of his soul, turned into a creature without will, a body that obeys but no longer feels. A Clockwork Orange thus becomes a parable about grace and punishment, about an absent God replaced by science and control. And perhaps that is where its greatest horror lies: in showing us a world where forgiveness no longer exists, where morality has been replaced by programming, and where man, in his desire to play God, ends up destroying the very thing that made him human. 100/100