V for Vendetta

Out on DVD, and as a result of one of my sons' good taste in films, I saw this last weekend. It's one of those films that I would not have looked at normally because the genre and style don't normally grab me. But I'm glad I did see it. It's one of the best films I've seen for a while. In trying to work out why it got under my radar, I think I would have to say that it is probably a combo of the characters who I really liked, the plot which had a rather sardonic humour about it, lots of interesting bits of symbolism, and the rather chilling portrayal of where I think that the kinds of policies our present government is pursuing would take us. It's a kind of comic-book-hero meets a revamped-"1984" scenario. The only thing I didn't really like was the (inevitable?) Warchowski bros balletic violence towards the end and the fact that this was yet another replay of the myth of redemptive violence at that point. However, in respect of that last point; it should be noted that the revolution was non-violent and the blowing up of the houses of Parliament was actually, mostly a firework display. The best moment was where troops were about to fire on huge crowds of civilian demonstrators converging on Parliament dressed in Guy Fawkes costumes and where the commanders' humanity won out and they did not give the order to fire and a huge repeat of the Peterloo massacre was not played out. That was a really positive moment celebrating non-violent resistance and mitigated the nod to redemptive violence which was, in any case, not really redemptive but came out at vengeful and something to be put aside having no place in the new world that would emerge from that night.

I loved the symbols and am still musing over it on that level. The use of the Croix d'Alsace for the fascist regime is interesting (given it was the symbol adopted by the Free French under De Gaulle). The symbol of V is rather like the Zorro symbol in some ways but evokes the wartime V for victory and yet uses a fascist colour set which could also be read as anarchist, and given that the symbol is pretty much an upside down anarchism symbol, I suspect that the latter association is the one we are expected to see first. The way that the leader is only ever seen on screen until his last scene is interesting too, provoking the musing up till the end of the film that he is a kind of big brother symobl, not real but a kind of personalised cipher for the reginme. I also liked how not all the baddies were irredeemably baddies.
A film I think I will see several times.
V for Vendetta
Filed in: film, politics, review