Now, here I am presented with the age-old critical
dilemma that every reviewer pulls their teeth out over:
should a film be judged solely on its cinematic
qualities, or also on the message it chooses to convey?
Huh?—you’re thinking. V for Vendetta? Isn’t that
the Natalie Portman action-movie written by those two
guys who made The Matrix? The one that’s based on
a comic-book? The one with the hero that wears that
strange mask as he frolics around carrying out whatever
justice he carries out? How could such a dilemma arise
over that movie?
Well, color yourself stunned; there’s more to V
for Vendetta than its trailer might suggest. In it,
Natalie Portman plays Evie, a TV-station reporter living
in London, in an alternate reality set twenty years from
now. In this alternate reality, the United Kingdom has
been taken over by fascism and is controlled by a
dictator, while America merely stands by and watches due
to a massive plague that has wiped out half of its
population. The only person that can save the British
Citizens from the regime oppressing them is V (Hugo
Weaving of Agent Smith-fame), the mysterious masked-man
who looks so cool in all of the film’s
promotional materials. He is a proclaimed “terrorist”
who sees the need to violently rebel against the
government. Early on in the movie, V comes to Evie’s aid
as she is being violently hassled by curfew-officers
when walking home late one night. While thankful for
being saved, this regretfully (or perhaps by destiny?)
brings her into V’s life, forcing her to hide from the
government who sees her as his conspirator.
A basic description of V for Vendetta hardly
makes it seem at all controversial, but the film’s
presentation and context imply otherwise. If V is
rightfully rebelling against an oppressive fascist
government, then why does the script insist on dubbing
him a “terrorist” rather than a “revolutionary”? I could
understand this if only his targets used such a title in
referring to him because of their status as antagonists
in the story, but V himself seems to bask in the glory
of the term. It seems troubling to me to be associating
the idea of terrorism with a hero who not only
stages attacks on a Nazi-like regime, but even takes the
time to throw in some fireworks for the public to enjoy
when bombing a government-facility. All of this seems
even more peculiar when one links it to the references
made to Western Attitudes towards Islamic Terrorism in
the film, especially those regarding the
government-mandated censorship of the Koran in Evie and
V’s society.
However misguided some of the film’s suggestions
may be, my prominent mentioning of them also underscores
the thoughtful ideas that the movie actually has to
offer. In the modern-day international climate, are
Western Societies doing all they can to protect
Democracy? Are they suffering because they do not
understand enough about their terrorist enemies? From
this perspective, V for Vendetta is fascinating:
while most films of the sort take on a third-person POV,
it instead allows the audience’s sympathies to lie
within the relationship between “terrorist” V and the
innocent Evie. The viewer is able to see the attacks
against the government from the rebels’ viewpoint. This
is pulled off much thanks to Portman and Weaving’s
excellent performances.
The action in V for Vendetta is probably the
least interesting thing about it, as the movie is just
as much (if not more) about ideas—for better or for
worse—than sci-fi allegories. However, that is not to
say that its more fantastical scenes aren’t well-done;
the film’s dark, foggy, and macabre art direction suits
it brilliantly and looks gorgeous. Although it’s a
little long and slightly more sprawling than I would’ve
hoped, V for Vendetta is, in many ways, all one
could ask for in a mainstream movie. Thus, again, I
return to my original dilemma: should I be more eager to
praise it, or more questioning towards its liberal
definition of terrorism? For now, I’ll merely find a
harmony between the two and say that it’s certainly an
interesting movie that deserves to be seen, regardless
of one’s impression of it.
-Danny, Bucket Reviews