V for Vendetta
I have not had the privilege of reading Alan Moore’s graphic novel response to the administration of Margaret Thatcher, but no matter. I read the news, I don’t need to imagine the fear that drove this work into being. I don’t know why Moore wanted his name taken off this film (especially after the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) but as its own work, this film is simply fantastic. If the fanboys out there take umbrage with something in it, I’m sorry, I loved it, but we’ve disagreed on comic adaptations before. I saw it twice opening weekend, if that’s any indication.
Evey (Natalie Portman) lives in a religiofascist (or is that theocratic hegemonistic?) England with curfews, selectively blind authorities, and total enforcement of compliance, conformity, and obedience to the High Chancellor. The High Chancellor spreads ignorance and intolerance among the people with his movement (can you guess what that was inspired by?) of Unity through Faith, Strength through Unity with a Rush Limbaugh-like television star while decent citizens hide their art or their literature underground.
Evey encounters and becomes inextricably entangled with a man, known only as V, who wears the mask of Guy Fawkes, and seeks a better world. (Look Fawkes up on Wikipedia, I’m here to talk about the movie.) Indeed, Fawkes is central to the whole story, but so are masks. Masks make us braver than we would be, and also make an icon out of a mortal. Everyone in this world has to wear a mask out of fear of being different and therefore punished. V wears a mask to give himself the freedom to change things. Hugo Weaving voices V and pulls off the incredible task of acting from behind a mask without his eyes being visible and still ends up being a fascinating character. Weaving’s voice conveys all that his face cannot, and the knowing leer of his mask frames that performance beautifully. Portman, no stranger to acting to playing off scene partners whom she cannot see, rises to the occasion and is incredible.
The world in V for Vendetta is one step away from the world of the Handmaid’s Tale - familiar, scary, but just different by enough. Don’t fall into the complacent “it couldn’t happen here” that clearly the citizens of this London have done. The film is littered with side characters who register their clear disbelief of the authorities but are too afraid to fight back. V wants to be a new Guy Fawkes, the man and the idea, and he does it with amazing panache. Freedom comes from embracing that last inch of ourselves, our integrity, even when all else has been taken away, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out the allegories at play here. However, even without the terrifying political atmosphere in our time, the film’s setting is terrifying enough in its own right by showing us how simply we as a society can be led just by allowing someone to lead us.
Beyond that, the movie is gorgeous - cinematographer Adrien Biddle (Aliens, The Princess Bride, and a host of stupid but beautiful movies after those) deftly uses the iconography of the graphic novel as well as painting his own scenes. The screenplay was adapted by the Wachowski Brothers (of Matrix fame) but does not suffer from the ridiculous problems of the last 2/3 of that trilogy. The story is engaging, not spoon-fed too much (though they do assume American audiences won’t know the 400+ year old story of Guy Fawkes, with good reason), and the acting on all points is great. When the governments cease to be afraid of/accountable to their own people, and begin to target their own people to make them afraid, all rational discourse comes to a stop. Here, V comes alive. It’s great.
MPAA Rating R-strong violence and some language
Release date 3/17/06
Time in minutes 132
Director James McTeigue
Studio Warner Brothers
