In English, with Hungarian subtitles.
For a good two decades, Lindsay Anderson was one of the most influential figures in British cinema. He also, not coincidentally, discovered Malcolm McDowell, with whom he worked with for many years. O Lucky Man! was created from one of McDowell's ideas. It is a strange, disturbing and terribly critical film, where through his aimless wanderings, the character Mick Travis manages to unravel a portrayal of a corrupt, cynical and hypocritical Great Britain. And therein lies a dilemma: are you walking the right path if you follow the ideals of the age and of the surrounding society, or by following the path of wisdom?
Lindsay Anderson's - and Malcolm McDowell's - story emerges from the traditions of British literature. It is part travel book, part picaresque novel and part coming-of-age story -and a reflection on the possibility of social advancement. Though it takes place in the 1970s. The belief in science's ability to redeem the world has faded, but the fashionable ideas of the age of Aquarius feel like nothing more substantial than bizarre clothing and no less strange voices. It is a grotesque, sometimes surrealistic tale, in which the social elite and the ruling class have lost their values, and where those below them have turned into mobs, with no longer any solidarity with each other. Travis' odyssey - from bed to bed and prison to prison, with a series of papers to be signed and a series of failures to endure - reveals a world that could in no way be considered the best of all worlds. The almost grandly epic film holds a bizarre twist at the very end. But we can only talk about that, and it is only worth discussing it, after you have seen the film.