Monday, August 06, 2007
REVOLUTION updated
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Lindsay Anderson's
I saw this when it came out and it was as shocking today as it was then.
Some consider it 'the most shocking film'.
The equivalent, for England, of The Wild One or Rebel Without a Cause.
A misbehaving group in a traditional English school rebel in a totally surprising and revolutionary way.
It is allegorical. The establishment—the ins—and the establishment's minions—the outs.
The British class system in microcosm.
And all that.
The film has Malcolm McDowell who is great as the head rebel.
I have never been to a traditional British school but the depiction of the life there is incredibly detailed and seems totally realistic.
There are hundreds of kids.
There are a lot of scenes with so much going on that you cannot really take it all in.
The usual themes are here. Sadism. Homosexuality. Rigidity of form. Stupidity and twisted morality of the people in charge. Hypocrisy.
But Anderson blends all the usual stuff into a really unusual film.
Because of its polarizing ending, it asks the question "whose side are you on"?. Could be either I suppose.
The movie is also interesting because of Lindsay Anderson's place in British cinema.
He developed a philosophy of cinema which found expression in what became known as the Free Cinema Movement in Britain by the late-1950s
I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5 because I am trying to be more critical. It has some rough spots and a few quirky things are just annoying. Like a seemingly random switch from color to black and white and back. I didn't get it.
Labels: best films
