V For Vendetta
2005. Directed by James McTeigue
V For Vendetta is a film loosely based on a graphic novel by Alan Moore. I’ve never read Moore’s book so I can only comment on this film. I say loosely based because I do know that Moore took his name off the film because he felt co-writers Andy and Lana Wachowski strayed too far from his original intent. I can only surmise then that this film represents the beliefs of the Watchowski brothers more than anyone else.
The story is an interesting mix of The Phantom of The Opera and a political thriller. V, a powerful masked figure, is on a mission of vengeance against an evil totalitarian government with dark secrets that has risen in England in the near future. Natalie Portman plays a young woman who is befriended and trained by V to help him in his mission. This pair commit numerous acts of terrorism against their government in the name of freedom and a better future.
The story is well told and engaging, but the message is cloudy at best. Are the Wachowskis saying authority is bad? No, not necessarily. Are they saying absolutist authority is bad? Maybe? It’s really hard to tell. We get scraps of liberal fan fiction, where the conservative moralist Christians are the power hungry, racist bad guys who go out of their way to maim and kill homosexuals and children, and we also get this weird morality of violence, where the ends always justify the means. One may ask how V is any better than the murderers he’s murdering. The film never answers this question, and the Wachowskis don’t really seem to care. We are treated to both a condemnation and a celebration of lawless violence, and that’s it.
What I find simply hilarious is the ending. V blows up parliament as his devoted millions look on in wonder and joy. End film. But wait a second, what happens next? How is a new government supposed to be set up in this sudden power vacuum? The Wachowskis give us a world where people, when left to their own devices, create evil totalitarian dictatorships. But then we are supposed to believe that those same people are basically good and can be trusted to create a new, better government through some sort of mob rule. Have these guys ever read a history text book? It’s really quite silly. I respect the Wachowskis as filmmakers, but as political and social thinkers they leave a lot to be desired, as does this film.