If... [VHS] [1968]

The story is great. As someone who went to grammar school in the 60s, I relate to the oppressive, bullying atmosphere of a prefect-patrolled school, with Rugby and CCF used as instruments of power. Fortunately, we didn't board and we didn't have fagging.

We understood why boys MIGHT go crazy and start a revolution, but the system was designed to keep control, so we never did. But you can still imagine, with a degree of pleasure - what if...

The film centres on episodes, which exist sometimes in a form of reality & drift otherwise into a surreal fantasy, each builds towards the denoument which sits well next to the 1968 riots in Paris (If...managed to capture the zeitgeist- see also the Civil Rights riots in the States or the predominantly middle class anti-war protestors both sides of the Atlantic). If... drifts from colour to monochrome- taking its cue from Godard & influencing later works such as Natural Born Killers & Nixon. It was widely reported that this was due to budget considerations, and it is hard to mould a theory of why each colour is used. As in Nixon (1995) it shifts film stock son frequently, there is no definite grammar as to what each represents- I just think it heightens the surreality & reverses what is fantasy & reality (we aren't sure if any of this is occurring- especially if we bear in mind the following films). A classic scene that demonstrates this is the episode where Mick & friend steal a motorbike & go out to a cafe in the middle of nowhere, where they meet the mysterious girl (Christine Noonan)- where we shift between (at least) three different conceptions of this situations (strangers? lovers? friends?) accompanied by the recurrent African music- which just happens to be on the jukebox. The girl recurs later as, perhaps the headmaster's daughter- she is seen gazing out of a window through a telescope. It is unclear- which is the joy of this film...

If... was certainly of great influence- Stanley Kubrick was a big fan & casted Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange as a result (also the 'war face'part here can be seen in Kubrick's later dark masterpiece Full Metal Jacket). The cast are fantastic- made more surreal by the appearance of sitcom regulars like Arthur Lowe, Graham Crowden & Robin Askwith. It is notable that Stephen Frears worked on this in a technical capacity, similar to Nic Roeg's camerawork on films like Fahrenheit 451 that lead to moving towards their own directing films...

If... is a perfect film, it makes complete sense when viewed next to other works of the time that exhibit a blend of Brecht & Kafka- such as Godard's Weekend (also 1968), Antonioni's Zabriskie Point (1970),Pasolini's Teorema (1968) ,Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers (1966) & Costa Gavras' Z (1968)- which all exhibit revolt & end in destruction (and I take a previous review that mentions The Prisoner, The Singing Detective is similarly shifting through the surreal- between fantasy & reality).

If... is one of my favourite films, and a contender for one of the best British films ever made- easily ranking next to A Clockwork Orange, Performance & Blow Up. A timeless allegory that is compounded by the culture surrounding incidents like Columbine & Dunblane. If only British cinema could be this daring again...