Very, very interesting. It often feels realistic and honest, but then there are events that couldn't possibly take place in the real world - none of the characters' actions at the end make any sense, for instance. The only thing that detracts from it is the unfortunate colour-to-b&w shifts. McDowell is astonishingly good.

Wow.

It's well made and fun to watch, but allegory is the lowest form of narrative and the allegory here is thick. By and large it's a one-note movie. It has one thing to say and the only variations belong to the degree of bluntness with which it is said. Eventually, and alas, predictably, it decides that its message about repression turning youth into monsters still isn't obvious enough. The finale dispenses with the until then reasonable hideousness in favor of hyperbolic grotesqueness.

561

A strange commentary on British society, this film makes wonderful use of its unique cinematography and soundtrack to slowly build a sense of tension that results in an explosive finale.

Watch O Lucky Man! if you've yet to see it.

The alternating black and white to color was so pointless that I thought my DVD was broke. If you are gonna do that, you have to be saying something and not just being a pretentious douche. It was pretty boring and the ending was really lame. McDowell was good though.

An interesting experiment, heavy with allegory and a symbolic color power. Too full of itself, though. Pretentious.

Rewatched if... for the first time in ages, and DAMN, that's a good movie. I'm trying to think of any movie where Malcolm McDowell doesn't play a self-obsessed psychopath - I'm sure he must have made one at some point, but until further notice, a good rule of thumb is always: don't piss off Malcolm McDowell.

Allegorical drama centered on a stuffy British boarding school in the post WWII era. I'll probably need more than one viewing of this flick to tease out all the meaning, but on its surface it's a scathing attack on tradition, religion and class structure. Malcolm McDowell is magnetic as the rebellious student who rejects everything he's taught and eventually leads his friends in a violent revolt against the institutions of the state. Quality film.

Bizarre film - very school boy fantasy. It has a strange look compounded by the mix of black and white and colour. Some memorable scenes and Malcolm McDowell is hypnotic but I couldn’t really be bothered to analyse all the sub text.

#535

"A study of a revolution against repression and tradition using a British, Christian, military-style boarding school as an allegory."

Every time the movie went from color to black and white I got kind of angry. I just cant seem to find a logical reason as to why that was needed. Maybe it saved them money or something, who the hell knows? What I do know is; the cast was wonderful. Especially McDowell, he makes this fairly slow film really interesting to watch. Towards the end If... starts to get really surreal and becomes alot more interesting. Then it ends, and your jaw will probably drop.

Bizarre surrealist film, alternating color with B&W, and characters appearing out of thin air. Some of it works well (the headmaster shouting "I understand you, boys!") and some of it doesn't. (Mrs. Kemp nude?) Slow pacing for the first half, but I've never lived at a British boarding school, and thus, couldn't fully appreciate it. Still, I could relate to the scenery and the main trio, especially McDowell's magnetic, realistic character. Also representative of the fervor sweeping schools then.

The various criticisms leveled against it here are to some degree all valid, but I don't really care. I found it immensely enjoyable and very aesthetically pleasing, I even liked the at first jarring jumps to black and white after a while.

I feel like there is a lot more to this movie than what I grasped. An interesting film for sure. I'd like to see it again one day.

points for being a movie that would NEVER be made today. Surreal and witty, this movie delivers a surprising payoff at the end, although not as shocking as I thought it would have been. I also spent a good deal of time trying to fit the black and white scenes to any theme in particular, and every theory I had seemed to disprove itself. I didn't dislike it, but it definitely had some inaccessible areas to me.