You know that Hugo Weaving has to be a great actor when he can carry off wearing a mask for an entire movie in V for Vendetta. He expressed a wide range emotions through his voice and his non-verbal body cues. I found the movie to be very good and unpredictable. Naturally the movie was dark since it was about a tortured soul getting back at a fascistic state.
One thing I found interesting about the movie is that the writers vision of a dystopic England seems a lot like modern-day America minus the actual jackboots. The character who plays “The Voice of London” could easily be Bill O’Reilly and the newscasts seem disturbingly bubbleheaded in the US local news style. Hopefully they’re not already that way in Britain. Then you have a leader pushing fear for his policy and constantly reminding his public”why they need us.” Sound familiar?
By the way, John Hurt does an amazing job as High Chancellor Sutler, as does Stephen Rea as an honest cop in a corrupt and authoritarian system. Thanks to freerice.com, I’ve learned that sutler means provisioner, and I wonder if the writers knew that? That all the people were looking for was someone to provide them with sustenance and safety? Who better to give that than a man named Sutler? Makes me wish the DVD came with a commentary, but nope.
My favorite moment of the movie was when V hijacked the TV station and used the country’s Emergency Channel against itself. His voice was so calm and reasonable in contrast to the chaos surrounding the efforts to stop his broadcast.
My favorite line of the movie was “A false ID works better than a Guy Fawkes Mask.”
There is a sequence when V takes extreme measures to ride his companion Evey of her fears. For some reason this sequence reminded me of Rousseau who has been credited with saying something like “Sometimes you have to force people to be free.” Indeed. Still think people deserve choices.
I’m happy I didn’t see this movie till this year because in the past year I’ve made friends with several Brits through Twitter and Facebook and thus knew some of what November 5th was about and why fireworks were so important.
Although this movie contains a significant amount of violence, it is important to the story and not gratuitous until almost the very end. I think it got its wires crossed with The Matrix, which was produced by the same people. I find it worth watching and discussing. If you’ve seen the movie, let me know what you think.
I found the movie intriguing enough I’m going to read the graphic novel it is based on. It’s at my local public library and shows as checked out, so I place a hold on it.
Filed under: movie reviews, security theater, terrorism
