I don’t want to let ‘V for Vendetta’ enter obscurity without some mention on this blog. There are various complaints one could make about V, but it is still superior to most movies of the past year. It is a political thriller much more than an action movie, with a very real puzzle at its center. The story has been prettified from its comic book origins, and updated to include Iraq, but it remains a story about how fascism arrives in myriad small ways rather than a big bang, so that the tipping point between our present society and a fascist state is very hard to identify.
It is a remarkably smart movie about terrorism for this day and age, perhaps why critics had such a problem with it. Some of the dialogue, besides being quite beautiful, provides a far more intelligent discussion of the justifications for terrorism than anything on PBS or NPR.
And there are a series of strong and moving performances, of which Stephen Rea’s world weary police detective is the best.
Do you really think Hugo Weaving was behind that mask at any point during production? I liked this film as well (though visually it was muddy and the art direction left me wanting more–if only Paul Verhoeven had directed). What I do remember (I saw it in the theatres last spring) was exactly what you point out Chris, V makes a very intelligent case for the need for terrorism in a world that spirals towards dystopia by the hour.
I gotta say I didn’t enjoy V. Appreciated it, maybe even found something admirable in its wedding of politics, provocation, and sleek pop sensibility, but… I kept seeing the skeleton behind the mask.
By this I mean every vaunted speech seemed to me like either a) a stilted essay forcibly stuck into a pat narrative context or b) a beautiful essay forcibly cut out of the more effective contexts of Moore/Lloyd’s carefully-staged and “shot” graphic novel. Similarly, the bit where Stephen Fry’s tv host does a rebellious episode, lampooning John Hurt’s dictator with slapstick and Benny Hill music, seemed absolutely wonderful if I stopped watching and thought about its as a set of ideas or propositions (“What if we…”) but strangely inert as a piece of film. I just never got into the movie, even though I found its passions worth the time. I guess I like the *idea* of V, but the film suggested more than caught that spirit.
I can see that reaction: admiring V without actually enjoying it. And I had a similar reaction to the Stephen Fry/Benny Hill bit. It was a clever way of illustrating the point at which — for one man — the difference between a malicious state and a fascist state suddenly becomes clear, but it did not quite work, and it was hard to believe the Fry character could be so naive.
Still, I did enjoy the movie in a visceral way, I think ultimately because of the performances. The discussion of terrorism appeared as matter-of-fact statement rather than speechifying because it was mostly uttered as part of a love story: the tenderness of the V character towards Evie (in contrast to his willingness to use violence ruthlessly) won me over. And again, so much of the interpretation of this particular fascism is done by Stephen Rea, and he was just superb.
I watched this last night due mostly to Chris and Jeff’s praise. I’m not sure yet how much I liked it, but I am quite impressed that it got made and released. Turning England into a mix of Nazism and Orwellian giant TV screens takes some of the sting out of a Warner Bros. produced big budget pro-terrorism film set in the UK I suppose.
I’d say that not only was the film muddy in it visuals, but also in its sound. I had to watcd nearly the whole thing with subtitles on to get the words, even when the dialogue wasn’t mask-masked.
I’m also impressed they decided to stay as close to Alan Moore’s story as the did, right down to big chunks of the comic book’s lines. I admire Moore’s convictions of not wanting his name on it, but it’s a little rude for the Wachowskis to then go ahead and take sole credit for “writing” the thing when they certainly did no such thing. “Adapted” would have been a far more appropriate word.
And if Verhoeven had directed we would have had a lot more sympathy for the fascists, the poor dears, who were after all just trying to keep everyone safe and sound from deviants like Stephen Fry with his Koran and his barely visible Mapplethorpe-like snapshots.
I enjoyed the visual flair and unusual quality of V…but someone will have to explain to me why it’s a “smart” movie about terrorism. I thought its main failing was its inability to imagine resistance as anything but the response to an entirely repugnant repressive dictatorship–that the movie did nothing to represent the variety of controlling techniques a government might use. The totalitarian nature of the government was even more obvious than that in 1984. Are there subtleties to its depiction that I’m missing?
What distinguishes V from most recent films dealing with terrorism (whether this makes it smarter or not is an open question) is that the “cause” of the terrorism is firmly lodged in the character of the state, to which it is a response. In most films I can think of (Syriana, The Terrorist, The Siege), the cause of terrorism lies in the character or personal experiences of the terrorist himself or herself. The way in which film-makers have sought to, if not justify, then explain, terrorism is to humanize the terrorist by providing a backstory for their actions. Even in Munich, it is the personal impact of terrorism, whether by or against the state, upon the terrorists that is the focus.
In V the cause of terrorism is the nature of the state and the crimes against humanity of the biological experiments and testing. V wears a mask, and early on rejects the question from Evie of who he is, in order to change the focus of our attention from him to the state.
I thought that the street-level depiction of this near-future Britain did not look overtly fascist. From the perspective of ordinary Britons, the changes were pretty subtle (how else could the Fry character think he was going to get away with his satire?). The TV broadcasts sounded entirely contemporary, and the language used by spokesmen and broadcasters mirrors that used today to explain away acts as mindless terrorism. Even the ravings of Prothero are well within the discourse limits of the average episode of Rush Limbaugh. Now we — the viewers — see the inner councils of the state, and the sputtering mania of the Hurt character, and it is recognizably fascist. But I don’t think that is the image of most citizens.
Michael, you are correct; the film ain’t subtle but given the historical moment, it’s bombastic reification of violence as a necessary tool to overthrow/combat governmental hegemony felt . . . shall I say . . . subversive, even smart (in a “how dare they” kind of way). We Americans, who founded our republic on the backs of terrorist attackers, are now waging a war on terrorism. The ironies were hard to ignore while I was watching V. The Palestenian film Paradise Now also produces such interesting sociological/ideological fissures in, at least, this Western viewer’s noggin, but it was artsy and foreign and came from a country that many don’t believe exists. Given that, V for Vendetta, its attendant publicity campaign and its unfortunate collision with the July 2005 London bombings, strikes me as something approaching dangerous (and I mean that in a good way). And I’m sure it played all over the world (well, it only grossed about $131 million world wide which surprises me a little).
jeff, i’m ready to believe you, but can you explain in what sense you mean that americans founded “our republic on the backs of terrorist attackers”? do you mean the slaughtering of the indians? if you do, don’t you think it’s a stretch of the term to call that terrorism? i myself am less and less clear on the definition of terrorism… what is a good, less bushian, less “we are good they are bad” definition of terrorism? and is terrorism always bad? your latest comment suggests that you might think it’s not, though of course “good” terrorists are often described with a different language.
No, I guess I’m speaking–in broad strokes–to the American revolution of the late-eighteenth century. The Boston Tea Party and all that. What is the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter if a)they draw first blood and b)there is little disregard for civilian casualties (the tricky one and V plays it safe on this issue). That being said, I’m not entirely knowledgeable about the day to day violence that defined that war. I know there was a certain battlefield decorum (I watched Barry Lyndon twice in a row one Saturday when I was 12) , but you have to imagine there were also many ugly acts of human brutality taking place beneath the neoclassical veneer of modern civility–that’s simply human nature, especially during wartime. What happens if the ends do justify the means? That’s the kind of naive but thought-provoking questions this film made me ask, I think, because it was marketed as a mainstream, if edgy, Hollywood action flick. It encouraged me to reckon with acts of destruction in the name of political liberties on a level usually watered-down in big ol’ pieces of entertainment.
watched this last night and quite liked it. (didn’t have a problem with the sound.) i agree with chris about the boldness of the film’s depiction of terrorism as justified against oppressive states (whose practices seem very familiar in some ways). however, i would agree also with michael in that in a sense the film replicates what it rails against: v is as much a surveiller (does this word exist?) as the state, as reliant on a vast repertoire of technology (the source of funding for which is never clear), and is finally as faceless.
it is adorno vs. brecht all over again. on one side we have the polemical thrust of a v for vendetta (and i agree that in a studio film this is quite remarkable–it pays to have made the matrix trilogy, clearly); on the other, a film like brazil–which goes over the same ground but in an absurdist, inside-out manner, with no uplifting, happy ending. it isn’t either/or, of course, but i was reminded of gilliam’s film while watching this one, and somehow the darker vision rings truer.