It's not an everyday occurrence where you watch a movie that is just so weird and hard to describe to people that haven't watched it that it stands in a category of its own, but that is clockwork orange. This movie was banned for many years and catholics were prohibited from seeing it because of its sexual nature, which literally makes itself known in only the first minute or two. Right from the beginning, when you see Alex, the "protagonist" who beats, rapes, and tortures people for his own wicked amusement, staring emotionlessly into the camera, you know you're about to see something that doesn't hold anything back. Clockwork orange is full of acts of violence, sexual imagery, and brutality throughout its various scenes, but that's the whole beauty of it and why this movie still holds up after half a century now. It does what other movies (especially back in the 70s) were afraid to do. The only other one that comes to mind is the exorcist, but that was still 2 years away. Anyway, Alex commands the audience's attention in the first half of this movie, and it's understandable why the people watching would be afraid of him and his sociopathic tendencies. Even his fellow criminals are appalled by his actions, but he makes it very clear to them that he's the leader. That is until the second half of the film where he is arrested and sent to undergo an experimental procedure which is supposed to cure his violent nature and habits. The infamous scene in which his eyes are forced open while watching acts of violence in the theater is something the viewer won't ever forget. Clockwork Orange is another rare example of a movie that, in my view, doesn't have a single dull or disinteresting moment in it, and the film can be easily classified as three parts: the first segment where Alex is still a criminal, the second one where he is sent to prison and "rehabilitated", and the last segment when he is released. As said earlier, there will probably never be another movie like this one, and it stands alone in its own category because it is just that unique. There's horror movies, there are comedies, there are thrillers, there's film noir, and then there's clockwork orange.
Review of A Clockwork Orange
