November 5: Thoughts on V FOR VENDETTA

"Remember, remember, the Fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot.  I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot..."

"People should not be afraid of their governments.  Governments should be afraid of their people."

Even while proponents of libertarianism and anarchy sport Guy Fawkes masks for their cause, the historical Guy Fawkes was in fact a Catholic activist who sought to bomb the British Parliament and assassinate King James I not in order to depose an unjust theocratic dictatorship, but to replace an 'ungodly' Protestant one with a Catholic one.  Disillusioning as that might (and should) be, V FOR VENDETTA is a great movie filled with interesting ideas, stylish action and great acting.  I don't really care for the symbolism of the Guy Fawkes mask that has been inspired by the film though; it's a trite, unthoughtful symbol of cookie-cutter political activism that, ironically, is a self-indulgent and conformist variation on the power of the people.  I'm not saying that that's always the case, but that it's a safe bet that it is in most cases. 
Alan Moore, who wrote the graphic novel on which V FOR VENDETTA is based, has made no secret of his great disdain for Hollywood and their adaptations of his works, the right to which he sells strictly for the money, and to be fair, those films have included the severely overrated WATCHMEN, the surprisingly uninteresting FROM HELL, and the positively abysmal THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN.  V FOR VENDETTA, which Moore described as "de-fanged" and "a Bush-era parable by 

people too timid to set a political satire in their own country," is definitely the best film adaptation of any of Moore's original works.  The graphic novel on which it is based was written in response to the conservative resurgence under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and was a complex and morally ambiguous conflict between anarchy and fascism, but any elements directly addressing anarchy have been downplayed in the film, and the fascism has been altered to mix in more of the concerns of selling liberty for security that were prominent in a post-9/11 world during the Bush Administration and continue to be now.  Moore does have a point that the film could just as well have been set in America if it's dealing with all of that, but then there wouldn't be the established fan-base of V for Vendetta, so the War on Terror is made to have reached a point of major amplification in Europe in some near-future years. 
Even if V FOR VENDETTA isn't the anarchist fable which protestors bear the mask in tribute to, it is undoubtedly a left-wing film (libertarians have become much more right-wing prominent under the Obama Administration though), with some of its major concerns involving homophobia and Islamophobia, which have been points of criticism for neo-conservatives, the former especially, and especially in recent years.  The film is surprisingly touching on the pro-gay front especially, including significant subplots of a public figure who's also a closeted homosexual, and the memoir of a lesbian girl's coming of age and finding love as she's rejected by her family, and then arrested and killed with her lover under the conservative theocracy in power.  You can call that an extreme if you want, but that's exactly what's happened moralistic fascist societies throughout history, including Nazi Germany. 
In contrast to the Hollywood stereotypes, V FOR VENDETTA keeps the action pretty slim, with only a few action sequences, and even with the R rating open to it, only one scene is particularly bloody.  With THE MATRIX-creators, the Wachowski siblings, writing and producing, the action is stylish as you might expect though, with ultra-fast and sometimes slo-mo martial arts and showers of bullets.  Even still, it's a film more about ideas than action or style.  The ideas are not necessarily always as substantial as they could be, but it's no definite case of style-over-substance. 

The acting is great, with Hugo Weaving filling in for James Purefoy six weeks into the shoot, and creating a terrifically magnetic screen presence even whilst his face is covered throughout the entire extent of the film, and Natalie Portman adopts an unusually convincing British accent and gives full commitment to the role, including the famous shaving of her actual hair off onscreen.
So even if you're not one of those mask-wearing wankers from the news, watch V FOR VENDETTA today.  It's a good movie.