If

It is difficult to imagine If being made today. The art house sensibility and the glorification of adolescent rebelliousness have become enduring thought cliches. But the denoument, the misunderstood and wrongfully repressed rebels mowing down their school masters and mates is impossible to stomach in light of a decade of school massacres, a la columbine. When it was written, it probably intended to shock because the slaughter was so outlandish, that one could only contemplate it as an outlandish allegory. Now that the allegory has been outstripped by reality, the slaughter does not shock and seems like grim exaltation. http://www.amazon.com/If-Criterion-Collection-Malcolm-McDowell/dp/B000OPPAEW