Helena Żegnałek: A Clockwork orange is unlikable – and that is why you should watch it

I didn’t like Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange for one simple reason: it made me incredibly uneasy. I watched it in the comfort of my house, covering myself with a blanket, and drinking hot tea, and yet I was deeply disturbed. Nonetheless, I would recommend this movie to anyone who hasn’t seen it.

Based on Anthony Burgess’s novel of the same title, the movie is set in a dystopian reality and showcases a world of violence and injustice. The main character, Alex, is a young leader of a gang that indulges in theft, rape, and so-called “ultra-violence”. What’s so disturbing about this character is how much he enjoys causing pain to others. He doesn’t try to conceal it, you may even notice he takes great pride in it. Even though his character should be completely unappealing, I found myself rooting for Alex. And I didn’t like it.

The movie touches on important topics. It criticizes the inability of the prison system to resocialize convicts and discusses the idea of morality. One of the questions put forward is this: does being fit to live in a society make you a good person, especially if the choice of doing wrong is taken away from you?

The movie also examines the hardships released prisoners experience while getting accustomed to life outside the prison bars. After serving the years away from society, many people don’t know how to return to a normal life. Many have nowhere to go. In the movie, a released convict comes back to the real world and can't find a place he would fit in. His past relationships are long gone, and a chance of creating new ones with his criminal badge is close to zero.

In the beginning, the scenography and visuals in the movie look ridiculous. Later on, when you got used to them, they really add to the experience. The clean and futuristic world contrasts strongly with the violence and primal nature of its characters. No ominous sound effects are present during most of the gruesome scenes of sexual abuse or battering, and the emotional judgment is entirely up to a viewer.

A Clockwork Orange is filled with political, moral, and societal critique. It’s hard to find something that this movie doesn’t find fault with (and that’s the only reason I would reprehend it for). The infamous Ludovico Technique presented in the movie is a satire on behaviorism and the assumption that you can be trained to respond to stimuli in a specific way. There’s a parallel to the violence in the police forces. The politicians don’t mind the actual problems of people; their only concern is how to make themselves look good while bringing down the opposition at the same time. It becomes quite confusing at the end – I wasn’t sure which problem is the most important and should be solved first.

Besides shoving all of the world’s problems in your face, the movie does an amazing job of making people think. It creates a world so similar to ours that it’s impossible to stay indifferent to the dangers it presents. It makes you wonder if you are indeed a good person – and maybe, like me, you won’t like it for that reason.

Helena Żegnałek