Unlike the prison officials who bark their orders, the minister of the interior wields a quiet power. In all his scenes, he appears pleasant. When he visits Alex’s prison to choose a guinea pig for Ludovico’s Technique, he is suave, dressed in a good suit and speaking in a calm voice. He uses pretty words, saying that criminals should be dealt with on a “curative basis.” In other words, they shouldn’t be punished but reformed. However, these niceties belie more sinister intentions. The minister believes the government’s goal should be to run society cleanly and efficiently. Ethical and existential questions don’t concern him. When the prison chaplain tries to lecture him about the rights of man, the minister tells him that what matters is what works. He wants to maintain law and order in the streets, even if he must hire thugs as policemen. He wants to use their brutality in the service of the state. At the prison, he explains that the government wants to empty the prisons of violent criminals to make space for political prisoners. We don’t learn more about these political prisoners, but clearly they are people who oppose the minister and his party. Like any thug, and like the prison officials who seem so high on their authority, the minister of the interior seeks power at any cost.

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