Review of if.... (1968) by Joe M — 30 Jul 2007

I generally dig boarding school movies. Perhaps this is because they lend so well to coming of age stories. And the really great ones bring so much more. Rushmore is funny, The Browning Version had a great story, Harry Potter had magic...

Yet this was a film mostly about nothing. But not in the way that what is seemingly nothing is actually laying the groundwork for something more. No, this was mostly nothing in the "listen to freshly pubescent British kids complain about the establishment and talk about V.D." sort of way.

The presumably random scenes shot in black and white which appear throughout the film are also quite annoying. Watching the film I asked myself... This can't be at random. Are they fantasy sequences? Flashbacks? Dreams? When the film was over I found the answer. After having problems with color correction the decision was made to insert black and white scenes throughout the film more or less at random. So my first guess was right.

It's an hour and fifty minutes of character development with five minutes of payoff tacked the end. The worst part was I completely invested myself in the film, sure the payoff would be worth it. Perhaps it would have packed more of a punch seen in the middle of the 60s counterculture movement or around the time of the Paris student uprisings. But today, a film that is largely dependant on the impact of the payoff doesn't satisfy. Imagine two hours waiting in line for the greatest roller coaster imaginable only to find a crummy carousel at the end. Recommended only to Clockwork Orange fans and Malcolm McDowell enthusiasts.