V For Vendetta
One of the saddest phenomenoms in all of this world that we live in is that any form of government, whether or not they present themselves openly in their ideology as being either “liberal” or “conservative” invariably always descends into becoming some basic form or level of outright fascism, particularly when it comes to the art form of having to retain their power. Why that always seems to be the case might possibly be due to the usual inherent power and wealth structures at play in that particular country, or perhaps it just is that with politicians no matter what their expressed set of “values” are said to be, a true politician will always be just that in the end, especially when it comes to wooing the people with mere words and promises of a better day that only they can bring. And thus the only true solution in one’s viewpoint may just be that of embracing the tenets of outright anarchism which thus gives the sole individual the right to believe (or disbelieve) whatever values and beliefs they may choose to have, ala carte style unlike today where you must conform and accept ALL the notions in a particular doctrine in order to be a “true” party member. The key to it lies in waking people up to understand that they can really only be as free as they choose to be, regardless of what they’re told. Which brings us to this 2005 release by director James McTeigue based on a graphic novel by Alan Moore (who as usual with the film adaptations of his work disavowed all connections with this movie) that takes on the themes of people hating each other for purely political reasons and then set about telling a story of one man’s crusade to put an end to it. There are certainly relevant themes in it that people can equate to today’s climate, such as the notion that the news media only reports on their stories in a certain way (and likewise puts the thoughts that THEY want in our heads) because all of their program content is indeed subject to the government’s approval prior to going on the air with it along with the idea that such a widely viewed and popular tough talking political pundit is in actual reality just a pudgy, overpaid narcissist who is ripe for the picking after calling out people he doesn’t like on the air and then crying like a baby upon his demise when his intended target actually comes calling for him. The protagonist of the story is a man named V (Hugo Weaving), a character with intensely good combat skills (mostly with knives) and even possible superhuman abilities due to experimental research testing done on him at a government lab a long time ago. It turns out that Weaving’s face is never seen here due to V always wearing a so called Guy Fawkes mask (which was later co opted by the hacker group called Anonymous in a phenomenally stupid move, thus giving the group an easily identifiable motif that made it that much more easier for the government authorities to track them down) and it must be said that Weaving does a damn near incredible job in bringing this character to life using only his own body language as well as the nuances and cadences of his vocal inflections when it comes to his dialogue. His plan to apparently wake people up is to destroy buildings that have come to be known as literal symbolic landmarks of merry ol England (eschewing the killing of others though except for law enforcement figures in self defense and a certain group of people whom he holds responsible for the horrific experiences that he had gone through years earlier). Indeed, it is England that has now become the leading Superpower country in the world, with The United States said to be completely irrelevant in the near future after being torn apart by a civil war that may have involved the use of nuclear weapons, and the current British leaders make this so by utilizing a pseudo Christian philosophy to justify their actions so that they may maintain “order”, but in achieving this end they have managed to purge society of homosexuals and possibly racial minorities, eavesdrop on the people by performing “random audio checks” in order to gauge popular opinion, and even make use of a secret police force that can randomly grab people off the streets and take them off to be permanently detained, all to protect the interests of their idiosyncratic leader (John Hurt) who goes under the title of “Chancellor”. Meanwhile, V has kind of indirectly recruited to his cause a beautiful young woman (Natalie Portman, still in her “look at me, I’m acting” mode while sporting a surprisingly decent British accent), first saving her from some rape happy cops and then from being shot up when he launches an assault on the TV station where she works at. Soon he’s got her acting as his little partner in crime, helping to put his schemes in motion and even setting up an obviously perverted old bishop (one of the targets on V’s personal hit list) by posing as a prostitute and dressing up in a schoolgirl outfit in order to arouse the lust filled old man before V comes swooping in for his revenge. All things being told, the best performance here might actually come from Stephen Rea as the world weary cop tasked with finding and bringing this terrorist to justice, but not before both realizing and accepting that the closer he gets to V, the closer he gets to the truth, and in the process even making himself a direct target of suspicion from the government. It is Rea’s character that ultimately realizes that V’s actions (and their aftermath) actually really do have a near perfect sense of order and structure to them, not to mention a real justice involved when it comes to Hurt and his cronies as it pertains to the matter of exactly how they had gained their power in the first place through the manipulation of the people by using the power of the media to do so. All this while Portman is put through an extended “loyalty test” that involves actually shaving her head on camera and then breaking her down both mentally and physically to see if she still believes in his rebellious cause. There is some dispute here over the portrayal of V from Moore’s original graphic novel where things were made a little bit more ambiguous about whether or not his actions and motives were actually to be perceived as being good or evil, and surely a better final plot mechanism could have been done scriptwise rather than just having him cut a haphazard deal with the head of The Secret Police that results in him being able to get all of his intended eggs in one basket a little more easily than he should have been able to, and that’s on top of Stephen Fry’s rather bumptious turn as a TV talk show host (and friend of Portman’s) who rather proudly keeps hidden (along with his own homosexuality) a collection of several “banned” works of art before rather dumbfoundedly running a segment on his show featuring a wicked satire of Hurt’s leader that all but guarantees that a knock on his own door is coming (although the eerie similarity to the so called Muslim spoof film that was blamed for the later 9/11 attacks in Libya is hauntingly obvious). But then there is Portman coming upon a letter (and last testament) from that of a lesbian detainee who had been tortured to death which is as moving a statement for the acceptance of gays as has ever been committed to film, and the final, spectacular carrying out of V’s master plan is surely a moment for all to remember, as long as a perceptive viewer can look at it as being the putting aside of ALL political motivations and not really so much as the idea that Hurt and his right wing minions were in actuality defeated by a “better way” (i.e. liberals) and also that if you’re really going through the trouble to bring down your own government, you had better not have an already well established ideology to replace it with, but rather instead something completely fresh, new, and righteous, since there really is no point to the concept of toppling a great evil just so you can replace it with something that could possibly be even worse…
9/10