A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Seen on May 2, 2009 - A Netflix dvd

Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writer: Based on Anthony Burgess's novel
Theme: Condemnation of the fascist subjugation of human will into unquestioning conformity. The narrative shows how an amoral punk, Alex, is given to brutality, violence and criminal aggression. When imprisoned he is treated with the recent Lodovico chemical techniques and is completely transformed into an individual who loathes all forms of aggression, including sex. This experiment on him was State-sponsored with the alleged purpose of destruction of crime and violence in the country. But the corollary of this experiment is that it also destroys finer things in man such as appreciation of music. Outraged intellectuals protest against this. Fearing revolt from the enraged public, the state finally reverses the experiment by restoring freewill to Alex.
The film comes to you as a stage play, giving the whole a surreal fictional quality, thus rejecting the representational realistic mode. The events and settings are theatrical from the beginning to the end; even the language has the format of a drama. The staginess is perhaps an artistic strategy providing a short-cut to conveying the message.
The title too is meant to convey at once the theme which points to a machine-like man (Orang in Malayasian language means man).