As I watched Lindsey Anderson's "If....", two thoughts came to mind. Firstly, in the fifty plus years since the film's release, the number of revelations of physical and psychological abuse of young children at various private schools, convents, orphanages, even football clubs and secondly that four out of the last five Prime Ministers of this country had a private school education, although I hope that their own experiences were different to those suffered and endured by the youngsters here. I also couldn't help but be reminded of the atrocities which can be carried out in everyday society if sufficiently motivated people can get easy access to weaponry
Told in eight titled sequences, inexorably building up to the unforgettable climax, the film excoriates the prevailing attitudes and practices at fee-paying private schools in this country. Anderson unsettlingly flits between colour and black and white photography, making the link between the present day and the past, the monochrome scenes looking as if they could have been shot for a 40's or 50's historical movie a la "Tom Brown's Schooldays", the point being that the bullying, fagging and downright sadism which we associate with the supposedly bygone Victorian era are all in fact still very much with us today.
While the school headmaster seems to evince a degree of sympathy and understanding for the pupils under his charge, in fact he is tacitly turning a blind eye to the inhuman practices of the form-masters who rule the roost, as they use their seniority in age and position to demand complete servitude from their younger fellow-pupils while the senior teachers likewise look the other way or are somehow unaware of what is going on outside lessons.
Malcolm McDowall's Mick Travis is the worm who spectacularly turns, a maverick mid-year pupil pushing back or being pushed towards rebellion by every succeeding act of pettiness and example-setting made against him. Anderson cleverly has us rooting for him and his cohorts right up until he crosses the line into retaliatory madness.
Of course, being a film of the 60's, the narrative is juxtaposed with unusual and unexpected scenes which range from the mundane to the very odd, none more so than that of Arthur Lowe's senior teacher's buxom wife sauntering down the school hall completely naked.
Timing, of course, is everything and the film gained increased notoriety as it seemed to anticipate the worldwide student riots and mass protests of the summer of 1968 while the Kent State School killings on campus occurred barely two years later, while the film title itself ironically comments on the old Kipling poem from a bygone era which nobly celebrates aspirant youth. There's nothing noble about the actions of the privileged oiks here whose every whim is indulged and justified solely by outdated attitudes of privilege and deference, where they can violently thrash their juniors for daring to show insolence and expect their victim thank them for it afterwards.
I don't pretend to get everything Anderson was trying to put across here but in its various depictions of violence, nudity, bullying, abuse and masochism, he certainly challenged the norms of the day and in the process created some of the most enduring cinematic images of any other film from the era.
Told in eight titled sequences, inexorably building up to the unforgettable climax, the film excoriates the prevailing attitudes and practices at fee-paying private schools in this country. Anderson unsettlingly flits between colour and black and white photography, making the link between the present day and the past, the monochrome scenes looking as if they could have been shot for a 40's or 50's historical movie a la "Tom Brown's Schooldays", the point being that the bullying, fagging and downright sadism which we associate with the supposedly bygone Victorian era are all in fact still very much with us today.
While the school headmaster seems to evince a degree of sympathy and understanding for the pupils under his charge, in fact he is tacitly turning a blind eye to the inhuman practices of the form-masters who rule the roost, as they use their seniority in age and position to demand complete servitude from their younger fellow-pupils while the senior teachers likewise look the other way or are somehow unaware of what is going on outside lessons.
Malcolm McDowall's Mick Travis is the worm who spectacularly turns, a maverick mid-year pupil pushing back or being pushed towards rebellion by every succeeding act of pettiness and example-setting made against him. Anderson cleverly has us rooting for him and his cohorts right up until he crosses the line into retaliatory madness.
Of course, being a film of the 60's, the narrative is juxtaposed with unusual and unexpected scenes which range from the mundane to the very odd, none more so than that of Arthur Lowe's senior teacher's buxom wife sauntering down the school hall completely naked.
Timing, of course, is everything and the film gained increased notoriety as it seemed to anticipate the worldwide student riots and mass protests of the summer of 1968 while the Kent State School killings on campus occurred barely two years later, while the film title itself ironically comments on the old Kipling poem from a bygone era which nobly celebrates aspirant youth. There's nothing noble about the actions of the privileged oiks here whose every whim is indulged and justified solely by outdated attitudes of privilege and deference, where they can violently thrash their juniors for daring to show insolence and expect their victim thank them for it afterwards.
I don't pretend to get everything Anderson was trying to put across here but in its various depictions of violence, nudity, bullying, abuse and masochism, he certainly challenged the norms of the day and in the process created some of the most enduring cinematic images of any other film from the era.