There are so many reasons why this film had to become a classic.
Not only does it introduce Malcolm McDowell, of A Clockwork Orange fame;
Not only is it spoofed in The Meaning of Life;
Not only does it sum up the spirit of 1968, in a way that few films have managed to encapsulate in only one and a half hour;
Not only is this a brilliant counterweight to films like Goodbye Mr. Chips, The Browning Version or Dead Poets Society, with all their bittersweet vision of British public schools;
This movie gives you a reflection on what youth, education, and growing up mean in a way only the late 60s could, and Lindsay Anderson was way ahead of his time when he decided to make a film where no one can tell reality from imagination, or what the ideological message — if there is one —might be.
