Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

I’ve never thought so much about a movie before as I have 1968’s If..., directed by Lindsay Anderson. After buying it for $19.99 from moviesunlimited.com because it’s so hard to find and not on DVD, I watched it five times over the past five weeks and kept putting off this review. You might reflect that this over-familiarity with the film gives me a decided advantage in understanding its strengths and weaknesses, but I’m not so sure. I’m not British. I didn’t even attend Catholic school here in the United States (the movie takes place in a British boys school). And this is 2004, about thirty-six years after the movie was released. While it was controversial and shocking back then, as well as very popular with rebellious, young people, it now seems mostly to be an amusing trip back to the 60s...but is it really only that?

If... begins director Anderson’s very strange trilogy that continues with O Lucky Man and Britannia Hospital, the latter on DVD and the former bought also at moviesunlimited.com. Unlike most trilogies you may watch them separately or out of order because only a few recurring actors and Anderson’s themes of anti-upperclass British authority and confused sexual identity tie them together. I read up on Anderson with great sympathy, for he lived a lonely life so oppressed by high British morality that he denied...repressed...his homosexuality and only madly and passionately revealed it in his movies, though in a flirtatious, tasteful way.

The story is a simple one, told in a complicated, satirical way. The title If... might suggest to you that not all is as it seems in the movie and we will be challenged to discern what really is going on. The first half appears to be a straightforward account of a British boys school on its first day and after, getting us acquainted with its Juniors and Seniors and the administrators, especially the Whips who are young, arrogant men bossing the students around and doling out punishment. Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) as Mick Travis, a Senior, makes his entrance sporting an all-black outfit topped with a hat and scarf covering half of his face. He looks mysterious, rogueish, dangerous. When a Whip, or maybe a leader of the Seniors’ ‘sweat room,’ demands that Mick remove the ensemble and grabs the scarf, Mick wraps it back around his neck and hurries from the room with a drawer of his things. Soon he’s in a bathroom shaving off his forbidden moustache. He doesn’t look so dangerous now.

His best friend and dormmate starts to decorate the walls with pictures from magazines. They range from naked women to soldiers to Audrey Hepburn to royalty, which at one point Mick uses for target practice with a dartgun. As we get to know them, we sense their dissatisfaction with life and a great curiosity about death, blood and violence. I still, after five viewings, don’t understand the hilarity they found in the thought of being killed with a nail driven through your neck slowly. Mick has lines like “Violence is the only pure act,” “War is the only creative act,” “Death to the oppressor” and “One bullet in the right place will change the world forever.” In contrast to the traditional religious music they sing in school or during church, they listen to ominous tribal music in their room.

Because Mick and his friends don’t cut their hair in back, a Whip forces them to take cold showers. I wouldn’t get too excited about seeing this for the naked boys if you ask me, but it’s interesting to see the power a Whip wields over the boys just through intimidation. Mick calls him a bastard for making Mick’s time under the water longer, then stays under the water until the Whip comes back to the shower room. It’s a good way of showing him being demasculinated by unjust authority. The Whips also discuss a Junior boy who serves them (food, personal needs) as good-looking and who should be worthy of him, but when one complains of their homosexual flirtatiousness, the leader Rowntree makes the boy an unwanted gift to him. In other scenes Anderson’s fascination for men will also be revealed, no less than through a priest once.

The first half continues to set up the growing frustration of the characters while showing them in their classes, playing sports like rugby and fencing, being told what to do and how to do it. Enduring an even greater punishment for their attitude, for not being an example to the students and ‘slouching around,’ gives Mick a chance to tell the Whips how he feels about them in a few, short sentences. He’s quite a witty guy!

In the second half, I’m intrigued by what happens. It’s obvious when Mick fantasizes about becoming an animal in pursuit of a female acting like an animal, but not how much of the rest is a surreal dream of a boy gone mad. I do know that it mocks tradition and authority for thinking the lower classes can be satisfied with favors and that they won’t rise up against them. How If... does this is best left to your pleasure. Please don’t watch this if you’d rather not be reminded of the school shootings at Columbine and others. It probably won’t seem funny to you.

Malcolm McDowell was a star from the beginning. His Mick Travis commands not only the respect of his friends, but the screen with his imposing charisma and wit. He returns for the other Anderson movies as does the history professor who rides a bike into class played by Graham Crowden and the scriptwriter David Sherwin. David Wood, Richard Warwick, Christine Noonan, Rupert Webster and Robert Swan admirably play the other major parts, making it feel like a real British boys school and in Christine’s case like McDowell’s character was animalistically attracted to her. If... was often quite bizarre, such as when the headmaster in nightdress sings some kind of lullabye offkey while his wife in her bed plays the flute, but other scenes were more troubling, such as the punishments and the violence later. It’s British satire of the system.

I can’t blame the cinematographer for the mixture of color and black-and-white scenes when it was due to lack of finances, but it’s still annoying, like always entering the land of Oz with Dorothy. The story has elements of Easy Rider, fascinating me with its range of characters from all the classes and administration and the satire that seems as welcome today as in 1968, but McDowell’s rebellious character stood out and ran the show mostly. If you’ve enjoyed his performance in A Clockwork Orange from 1971, then you’ll likely enjoy him here.

It's curious that two reviewers here didn't like or understand the movie while on ciao.uk.com, five Brits loved it. I'm not a Brit, but that doesn't keep me from recommending it to those with a sense of British humor. Tomorrow I’ll watch O Lucky Man, the second in the trilogy, and promise to not delay my review, hehe.


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age