V for Vendetta
Bit of a film review. V for Vendetta.
Obviously behind the curve so to speak, as films don't open in far-flung parts of Prague until they're almost played out elsewhere. I make a point though of going to see films with a bit of bite about them. I don't like films generally all that much so at least with one you disagree with there's something to think about, and you keep up with the village idiots who make them.
I think the first thing one has to do with a film like V for Vendetta is to realise that it couldn't be more post modern than it is. Thus it is crude and stupidly ahistorical. Right from the off where we get a very short sequence flashing us back to the gunpowder plot we should realise that this is a film of gimmicks only: gimmick upon gimmick like modern shopping centres straining to convince you that there's some substantial world around you when in fact you're basically inside a glorified warehouse.
So, one is led to say, in this non-dramatic film of effects only- where dramatic effects are reduced to the same stature as the special effects- the message must be philosophical, and I think it is, and since the philosophy is tortured, you could call it a political film. There are subliminal messages galore, but I think we get a sense of the kind of world the Wachowski brothers would like to live in (draw up your top five liberal wishlist policies and you'll be close).
Its coherence can best be summed up by that beginning I mentioned: the sequence showing Guy Fawkes, which takes us from his failed plot to his hanging (even this I found a bit silly- I am sure he was hung, drawn and quartered, a bit more involved a spectacle and more interesting than what was depicted; they missed a trick, unless the dramatic aim was to manipulate rather than move the audience).
Anyway, the bottom line is that Guy Fawkes died in the service of an ideology, in opposition to the will of his countrymen, attempting to restore a religion that had excelled in corruption and despotism. The absolute monarchs of Europe could rely on the Pope to lend them support, the divine rights of kings were strengthened by this relationship. Guy Fawkes was an absolute enemy of freedom, as is usual for people whose aims involve directly killing large numbers of people.
Basically the film stands or falls on your acceptance that Guy Fawkes was a good man. I just don't, but if you do then all the nazi hints (and there are many), and the implausible way a historically democratic society becomes a genocidal dictatorship in a one or two bounds, becomes a lot more plausible. What irritated me, I think, about this link between Guy Fawkes and V was the implication that the 400 years of more or less representative Government which has followed the original 5th was essentially a footnote and irrelevant, despite the fact that modern democracy the world over owes something to the inspiration of Westminster.
The film works a lot in flashbacks, as is usual for a film without a proper plot, where revenge is being visited on all manner of people in a regime for the deceit and bloodshed by which they gained power, in so doing maiming V. We are introduced to V through an absurd dialogue he has with Keira Knightly where most of the words begin with the letter V. It's a ramped up Sesame Street approach which seems somehow appropriate.
It's the kind of film where you leave feeling the need to applaud the film makers not for achievement but for effort. What did they achieve though? Not much more than a kind of demagoguery consistent with support for terrorism.
It's a measure of modern film making that all the hurrahs are gained just by being able to say, there, we did it, 2 + 2 = 5, terrorism can have it's justifications, democracy can have its terrorism, blah blah, and we did it all in a Hollywood film! So nearragh neaarrgh. Pathetic.
Obviously behind the curve so to speak, as films don't open in far-flung parts of Prague until they're almost played out elsewhere. I make a point though of going to see films with a bit of bite about them. I don't like films generally all that much so at least with one you disagree with there's something to think about, and you keep up with the village idiots who make them.
I think the first thing one has to do with a film like V for Vendetta is to realise that it couldn't be more post modern than it is. Thus it is crude and stupidly ahistorical. Right from the off where we get a very short sequence flashing us back to the gunpowder plot we should realise that this is a film of gimmicks only: gimmick upon gimmick like modern shopping centres straining to convince you that there's some substantial world around you when in fact you're basically inside a glorified warehouse.
So, one is led to say, in this non-dramatic film of effects only- where dramatic effects are reduced to the same stature as the special effects- the message must be philosophical, and I think it is, and since the philosophy is tortured, you could call it a political film. There are subliminal messages galore, but I think we get a sense of the kind of world the Wachowski brothers would like to live in (draw up your top five liberal wishlist policies and you'll be close).
Its coherence can best be summed up by that beginning I mentioned: the sequence showing Guy Fawkes, which takes us from his failed plot to his hanging (even this I found a bit silly- I am sure he was hung, drawn and quartered, a bit more involved a spectacle and more interesting than what was depicted; they missed a trick, unless the dramatic aim was to manipulate rather than move the audience).
Anyway, the bottom line is that Guy Fawkes died in the service of an ideology, in opposition to the will of his countrymen, attempting to restore a religion that had excelled in corruption and despotism. The absolute monarchs of Europe could rely on the Pope to lend them support, the divine rights of kings were strengthened by this relationship. Guy Fawkes was an absolute enemy of freedom, as is usual for people whose aims involve directly killing large numbers of people.
Basically the film stands or falls on your acceptance that Guy Fawkes was a good man. I just don't, but if you do then all the nazi hints (and there are many), and the implausible way a historically democratic society becomes a genocidal dictatorship in a one or two bounds, becomes a lot more plausible. What irritated me, I think, about this link between Guy Fawkes and V was the implication that the 400 years of more or less representative Government which has followed the original 5th was essentially a footnote and irrelevant, despite the fact that modern democracy the world over owes something to the inspiration of Westminster.
The film works a lot in flashbacks, as is usual for a film without a proper plot, where revenge is being visited on all manner of people in a regime for the deceit and bloodshed by which they gained power, in so doing maiming V. We are introduced to V through an absurd dialogue he has with Keira Knightly where most of the words begin with the letter V. It's a ramped up Sesame Street approach which seems somehow appropriate.
It's the kind of film where you leave feeling the need to applaud the film makers not for achievement but for effort. What did they achieve though? Not much more than a kind of demagoguery consistent with support for terrorism.
It's a measure of modern film making that all the hurrahs are gained just by being able to say, there, we did it, 2 + 2 = 5, terrorism can have it's justifications, democracy can have its terrorism, blah blah, and we did it all in a Hollywood film! So nearragh neaarrgh. Pathetic.
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