This entry is dedicated to two of my padawans — one who thinks I’m worth spending time with, and one who thinks I’m worth reading. This is for you, boys…
Screenplay by The Wachowski Brothers
Based on the Graphic Novel by Alan Moore & David Lloyd
Directed by James McTeigue
“People shouldn’t fear their government. Governments should fear their people.”
It’s been a LONG time since a movie has had a profound effect on me…but this past Saturday night, a film I might have once dismissed as another run-of-the-mill action blowout managed to stamp itself on my mind with the force of a streaking missile. The result might be a review that leans towards loopy and metaphysical…but it’s the only way I can process the experience.
This movie shattered any expectations I might have had, based on what I’ve read — but it’s not because of the action sequences…
Mind you, they’re superbly done, they don’t dominate the film, they don’t take the place of actual plot, and the final, climactic confrontation flirts with magnificence. It’s the flip side to the violence-as-art found in Tarrantino’s Kill Bill films. Those films framed violence as retro-funk-rock operas, but V for Vendetta takes violence and creates a classical symphony.
This movie shatters the lie that action movies can’t have substance — but it’s not because of the acting…
That said, this movie IS full of superb performances…ingeniously wrapped up inside a series of Orwellian cliches. Everyone, from John Hurt’s bullish High Chancellor to Ben Miller’s oily network executive, plays a prescribed role with aplomb. But the stars of this movie are those people who don’t (or can’t) subscribe to a prescribed role: a masked man, who displays more emotional range than the governing monsters he fights…a young woman who suffers through a life-changing experience, and emerges as a totally unafraid person…and, in a brilliant sequence with virtually no dialogue, a girl who grows up to suffer tremendous torment for being true to herself…but is never defeated.
This movie shattered any illusions I had that Hollywood wouldn’t make a critical examination of the post-9/11 world…and it IS because of the story.
A story that takes the quote that opens this review, and gives it meaning. A story that examines the hideous consequences of humanity succumbing to its fear and loathing and terror — sacrificing its idealism for comfort and security. A story that debates whether or not civilization is a truly unique quality of humanity, or just a thin veneer, covering our innate brutality. A story about not learning the lessons of history, where concentration camps & state genocide re-emerge without a single dissenting word. And yet…there is the realization that it’s STILL not to late?
Not everyone is going to share my reaction to this movie…but if I had my way, EVERYONE in the western world would be forced to watch this film. They should be forced to realize that, as we celebrate the anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Centre attack, we have traveled too far down the road towards the sickening society on display in this film. We have sacrificed too many rights, too many principles, too many ideals…all in the name of security and war.
As Westminster Palace succumbs to an inferno that would have made Guy Fawkes’ heart sing, we realize, along with the protagonists, that the world doesn’t need a building as a symbol…they need hope. V for Vendetta — in a frenzy of art, vision, and crisp storytelling — is willing to articulate this hope…and I love it.
10
