SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

ShangLuda Admirable film.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

MissSimonetta If... (1968) is the first of the unofficial Mick Travis trilogy from filmmaker Lindsay Anderson. It's a significant film in the 1960s counterculture and would come to be influential for other filmmakers in the decade to come. The film is very rooted in the late 1960s and acts as a sort of surreal snapshot of the social tensions of that era. Even today, If... plays well as a story about shaking off stifling tradition and challenging the status quo. Its ending shoot-out is shocking, especially in the light of the mass shootings which we hear of so often in the current century.That being said, there are some problems. If... is Anderson's most iconic movie but not necessarily his most powerful or focused. I felt the film sometimes loses itself toward the middle, dragging down the pacing. The switching between black-and-white film and color is distracting and needless (people try to find meaning in it, but the constant swapping is only there because the filmmakers had budget issues). The parts of If... feel much more satisfying than the whole.The ending has also provided issues with some viewers, who are ambivalent about Mick's (possibly symbolic more than literal) mass murder of the school faculty. Are Mick's actions justified by Anderson? Are we to condemn him? Is this conclusion the inevitable result of oppression and class-based struggle? It's all hard to pin down and has put off some people I have spoken to on the subject of If..., but for me, the questions raised by the bloody finale of the film only make it all the more interesting.O Lucky Man! is a better satire and This Sporting Life is a more poignant look at class struggle-- however, neither has the rousing, youthful exuberance of If... which makes it unique and provides much of its appeal to this day. For all its flaws, it remains one of Anderson's best loved movies.

imanhassan-53889 If is one of those movies where the story doesn't matter, its the characters. Before clockwork orange, this is Micheal McDowell's film debut that skyrocketed his career. This movie has without a doubt, THE BEST actors for a movie with no story. Even the child actors are great. they are like young adults. If has a great settings, great music, (though there's little background) and amazing picture quality of its time. for a film that's made in 1968, it looks like it was made in 1985! Hell, maybe in the early 1990s if the hairstyles weren't dated. as this movie has great moments, there's two things i didn't like. One is the random naked lady that walked around a hallway. it was unnecessary and didn't need to be put. Another part was the black and white moments. there's scenes were the movies turns into a black and white film to set the mood. its cool in some scenes, but in other scenes like where the students are talking to each other, it appears again, and it was unnecessary. those are my only problems. If is definitely not made for everybody, buts its worth a watch if you like movies based on school

Rob Starzec If.... is a strange film since it seems to be on the border between the mainstream and the art film. It is definitely experimental in terms of its use of color as well as not being necessarily clear about whether certain moments of the film are fantasy for the characters (though some moments simply MUST be).For those familiar with a Clockwork Orange, it is made clear by this film why Kubrick made the casting decision of Malcolm McDowell for the famous anti-hero Alexander DeLarge. Malcolm McDowell is the driving force behind the film If.... even though he does not appear in every scene. He is wonderful with his disregard for the rules made to oppress himself and his classmates, and he pulls off this rebellious attitude with a convincing smart mouth and a bit of repressed evil.The theme of rebellion is practically shouted within this movie. When McDowell's character enters the story, he wears a cloth around his face and his classmates jokingly refer to him as Guy Faux, who you might remember as V's main inspiration in V for Vendetta. He and his closest friends are also constantly being punished throughout the film for acting against such seemingly unnecessary rules. But this is the environment they are brought up in - it is a private school for the upper-class in which they live and the adults will shape them to become upper-class adults through the means of rough discipline which at some points can arguably be described as abuse.The room in which Mick Travis (McDowell) and his closest friends hang out is also filled with photos focusing on rebellion. These photos come from various revolutions or wars, so most of the photos depict heroes (if you want to call them that) fighting in military battles.A sub-theme of this film seems to be repressed homosexuality. Rumors of a certain boy amongst the group claim he is homosexual, and this boy is given a scene where he focuses his attention on an upper- class-man exercising his gymnastic abilities. There is very little room for reading this scene as anything other than longing for the older boy, and it is a true example of the male gaze in cinema. Also, this is revisited later when the two boys are in the same bed together, smiling at each other with their shirts off.What is strange about this film is that there are moments of black and white footage, and these scenes do not seem to have a pattern. A lot of them are moments that are clearly within the diegesis of the film while others represent fantasy sequences - these fantasy sequences seem to be when the focus is on Mick Travis. But as said before, there is no true pattern as normal events and strange ones alike take the aesthetic of being shot in black and white, so it is peculiar why the director shot any sequence in color at all.Finally, if you are very sensitive or get offended easily this is not the film for you - the ending which the film builds up to is extremely disturbing.3.0/4.0

Josephine Andersson I just watched this movie and i am sooo confused. I guess there's some old political British message hidden in it or something, but i don't get it all. I feel like you never got to know the characters. It was just a bunch of boys with the exact same haircut and clothes and i don't even remember if they ever mentioned any names. The only person i knew who he was was the lead character and the random coffee girl, thats all. I never really understood or cared about any of them or the story. I just thought it was about a bunch of sexually frustrated boys who liked to play innocent tricks on the teachers. That's what i thought until the final scene. The shooting scene. Then i just got confused and slightly shocked. I get that they hated school, but a massive shooting? Killing people? Why? Was the point of the movie that school can drive someone insane or what? Also the switching between black and white to colour was annoying as hell, even if i know it was because of money issues.