By Antony Teofilo
March 21, 2005
V FOR VENDETTA first appeared as a black and white serial comic. When the magazine that was publishing the story folded, the popular V went unfinished. A few years later, DC Comics reprinted those original stories in color, finishing the plotline that had been left dangling years before. That was twenty years ago.
Twenty years. I was, well, I was young when this story hit the stands. At the time, the dark, fascist, isolationist London that writers Alan Moore and David Lloyd had conceived seemed like an impossible fantasy, as if the world they were creating was meant more as a warning. They were saying, 'This is what's going to happen to you if you don't keep an eye on your freedom.' It was the age of excess (and flight pants and day-glo and jelly shoes) after all. Who was really listening to such thoughts? The Western World was locked in a cold war, but there was plenty of stuff and things to spread around the economy, so Joe Littleguy was mostly content.
The nineties came and went, and we entered a new century. The wars that were being fought became sneakier, uglier, more deadly. These wars weren't about turf, or resources. These wars were about ideas. Or perhaps worse, ideals. (Well, them, and oil.) Conflict was not being carried out by armies or battalions or platoons, but by small secretive groups of people using unconventional means of warfare to get the world to pay attention. And that is where the world of V FOR VENDETTA proves itself creepily prescient and, unfortunately, timeless.
The world we find ourselves living in today seems a lot closer to V's paranoid, tightly- surveilled, totalitarian society than we might like to recognize. But we're talking about a movie here, aren't we?
A courageous story, this, and a courageous film. When I first heard that V was heading to the big screen, I wondered honestly how audiences would react to the tale of a morally ambiguous hero who resorts to the most horrible kind of terrorism imaginable to make his point. Here, it's the ambiguities that are the strength of the movie. It's a shame that the Wachowski Brothers don't often come out of hiding to tell people why making a movie like V (and making it well) was so important to them. But that's a whole other story, tied up with all sorts of unpleasant behind-the-scenes whispers and rumors.
I can tell you my reaction to the movie: I was a little horrified. Because I found myself rooting for V, a guy who has no trouble blowing up The Houses Of Parliament, or killing policemen, or offing politicians...and V is, well, let's just say it. V is a terrorist. After the screening, I wondered out loud how American audiences might have reacted had the movie's climactic explosions taken place under the White House, instead of Big Ben. Which, I suppose, is exactly the sort of thought the makers of the film will want us to think.
What drives a guy like V? In the story, he's got perfectly justifiable reasons for wanting to bring down the society in which he lives. The scary thing is that one could see how a certain element, a small element, a dangerous element of society could see themselves as we see V, or as V sees himself. I don't know about you, but that sort of thing keeps me awake at night, sometimes.
Now, V isn't preachy, if a bit verbose. I never really liked that whole thing with The Architect in the Matrix sequels, and there's a bit of that here. But this is a more tightly crafted film: moody, frenetic, a bit of a puzzle, not dependent on dazzling special effects, but story. The Wachowski Brothers and Director James McTiegue were very loyal to the book, taking the opportunity to expand a bit on V's origin tale, giving audiences a little more to go on than was seen in the comic. But don't expect the grand explanation to V's genesis. It's not here, and it shouldn't be. The key to V is not who he was, but who he is, and more importantly, who the government has made him.
Performances to watch out for include Hugo Weaving (THE MATRIX's Mr. Smith) who replaced James Purefoy due to rumored personality clashes with The Wachowski Brothers in the title role. Weaving gives a marvelously nuanced performance, especially considering the fact you never get to see his face. Natalie Portman is strong (if a bit anorexic) as V's protégé Evey. A great supporting cast rounds out the flick, including Stephen Fry (WILDE) as Evey's boss Dietrich, who gives a very human face to what happens to those who deviate from accepted cultural norms when the powers that be decide what is acceptable for the huddled masses to think about, and not the masses themselves.
V isn't all politics and no fun, though. Try this as an exercise: see how many references to the letter V, or the number 5, you can pick out as you watch the movie. As in the original book, there are some interesting tidbits placed throughout the film in reference to V's nom-de-guerre.
When it all comes down to it, V FOR VENDETTA is a thriller of an action movie that aims to make you think a bit about what's going on in the world. I think that's a pretty damn cool motivation for a movie to have. While Alan Moore has reportedly denounced any connection to Hollywood after some ugly lawsuits a few years ago, he should know that the Wachowskis were loyal to his work. In the case of a truly iconic story like V FOR VENDETTA, the always-possible celluloid incarnation of Moore's WATCHMEN, and the hopefully-one-day-dream-of-a-movie THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, these tales of heroes who flirt with the darkness need no tinkering with by anyone. What is on the page should be what makes it onto the soundstage. Plain and simple.
Just as in the fictional worlds that surround them, bad good guys are best left up to their own devices.
V FOR VENDETTA is in theaters now.
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