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V is for Vendetta, 2006 |
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Malaya and me were each surprised how much we enjoyed the film, and how well-made it was. I knew a fair amount about the plot thanks to several spoilery-reviews I tripped over, but there were still a few nice surprises, and more than that, it was just a real quality film. Nice performances all around, good plot, nicely-paced, good-looking, and while it's very much a propaganda piece, it's not grossly exaggerated or outrageous in it's portrayal of a contemporary, largely-democratic fascism. What it's not is an action picture. Though the screenplay was written by the W-bros of The Matrix fame, and directed by one of their assistants, it's not an action movie. It's got a few nice action scenes, and some awesome explosion porn, but if you're expecting Neo-esque fight scenes and action sequences, you're going to be disappointed, since they are few and far between. Vendetta is more of a political thriller and a future history lesson, with an intelligent, complicated plot, lots of good dialogue, and nice performances all around. Natalie Portman does a nice job in her role, and she really carries the film; Valena, the masked "hero" is the key figure, but the film follows Portman's character, Evey, much more than it follows V. As is usually the case in fantastic fiction, our POV is with the confused outsider (just as it was with Neo in the Matrix, rather than say Morpheus or someone else who knew what was going on all along) and we figure out what's happening along with them. As the film proceeds we follow the present action with Evey, meet the mysterious and vengeance-driven "V," and learn how fascists control England with propaganda through the news, salivating evangelists, and all sorts of wartime measures, such as curfews, food rationing, and constant terror alerts. We also learn V's back history, get a hint of what he's doing on his path to vengeance, learn more about the controlling politicians, and much more. The film paints a wide picture of the state of the world, and makes a lot of obvious and some not-so-obvious parallels to happenings today, in America. And that's what most of the controversy about this film has addressed. I went in without an opinion on the story or the way it showed events; I'd never heard of the comic before publicity for the film began, and honestly, I was expecting something a great deal more ham-handed. Overt moralizing and amateurishly-drawn parallels between evil Dubya-like politicians and real life politicians. You know, like in Episode III. Happily, it wasn't like that, and aside from the second in command of the fascist government looking rather like a cross between Rush Limbaugh and Carl Rove (complete with Rush's disturbing hot water bottle neck), there weren't any obvious Dubya-administration parallels. I thought the conservative backlash over this film was suspect before I saw Vendetta -- after all, if a portrait of a controlling fascist state makes you instantly think it's about Bush's Administration, doesn't that say more about you and the Administration than the portrait? Now that I've seen it though, I'm sure it's ridiculous. You could take the exact same film, change the ruling Christian theocracy into a Muslim one, or Nazi one, or Communist one, and the same self-proclaimed conservatives complaining about Vendetta's skewed view of totalitarianism would line up to applaud its brave stance against the sort of evil dictatorship Dubya toppled in Iraq. The film shows how the fascists came to power, and I didn't have any argument with it. Tell the people only you can protect them, fake a few attacks if need be, find some scapegoats to blame, disappear your political enemies, etc. Everyone's heard Goering's famous quote, right? It's hard to agree with a Nazi, but he certainly hit that nail on the head, and it's not the fault of this film that the current US president is working from the shallow end of that playbook, or that this Administration's cheerleaders so dislike that fact being pointed out. The film wasn't perfect; there's a lot of suspension of disbelief required, the plot is too neat and tidy, the population is too cowed and controlled to be so cynical and independent, and the holes in the technology and spying of the controlling government are a bit convenient. But for the most part the film worked, and was enjoyable. We'll definitely get the DVD, when that time comes, and I don't have a problem highly recommending V for Vendetta. |
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| Originally posted April 4, 2006. |
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