V for Vendetta (2006)

“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”

Well, it’s the Fifth of November. What other film was I going to review, eh?

It’s a bit of a surprise to realise that it’s taken me until my seventeenth movie review to get to a film from the present century. And, well, it’s not all that good, which I suppose is to be expected. With older films, by definition, the ones which have remained prominent are going to be the better ones, while the same weeding-out process hasn’t happened for newer films. And this one is no classic.

It’s just far too long and badly paced, for a start, and full of pointless, meaningless visual flourishes- why do we have to see V playing Domino Rally, for example, or those embarrassing scenes of V in the fires of Larkhill contrasted with Evie in the rain? Natalie Portman is incredibly wooden, too, and completely lacks the charisma needed to carry the film. The dialogue is not exactly naturalistic, and unnecessarily Americanised- I rather suspect that 99.9% of Americans are smart enough to guess what a “lift” is, and don’t need the word changing to “elevator”. Yes, there are lots of great speeches from V, and moving evocations of the human yearning for freedom, but most of this (possibly all) is lifted from the original, superlative graphic novel. (Well, strip in Warrior and then limited series by DC, strictly speaking. And yes, the fact that I used the term “limited series” does indeed mark me out as a Marvel kid!)

In fact, I’m somewhat surprised that watching this today has made me rather more sympathetic to Alan Moore for famously and dramatically taking his name off the film, and not only because we long-haired men from the East Midlands must stick together. The original graphic novel, barring the obvious references to Section 28, was about the abstract themes of fascism v. anarchy, not current events. Yet the film dilutes this message with lots of blatant and inappropriate contemporary references which have already dated horribly. The tipping point for Dietrich, which causes him to be executed rather than imprisoned, is his illegal possession of an antique Koran. There’s discussion of sinister contemporary euphemisms such as “rendition” and “collateral”. V wears a suicide bomb vest. Worst of all, the St Mary's virus being revealed as a government plot evokes all of those contemptible conspiracy theories about September 11^th, 2001.

Hugo Weaving is fantastic, but he’s not so much playing a character as an actor playing an actor. Although V is brilliant, he’s a spectacle, or more appropriately an idea, not a person. He can’t be the “star” of the film and the audience can’t identify with him. None of this is to imply the character lacks depth, but he lacks a psychology as such, and is far too distanced from the audience for us to identify with him. He isn’t an unambiguous hero, either- whatever his reasons, he tortures Evie, and this torture includes waterboarding, a fairly blatant and unfortunate comparison with the fatuously named “War on Terror”. There’s a clear moral equivalence here, but it’s a shame that such a broad and interesting point should be diluted with an already-dated contemporary reference.

There’s a lot of good world-building here, which only fails to come off because of the Wachowski Brothers’ insistence on such a slow pace. Like many recent films, the film could have done with a lot more editing. And yet, the 1984-style Britain works well. John Hurt (who once played Winston Smith, of course!) is great as “Chancellor” Adam Sutler, and Tim-Pigott Smith is superb as Creedy, head of the new Gestapo. I’m not sure the title “Chancellor” is realistic, mind: it’s far too propaganda-defeatingly close to Hitler, and the title in Britain refers to the Finance Minister and would be an unlikely title for a head of government.

Still, the many sequences where Sutler’s face looms large on a big screen as he berates his underlings work well in reminding us that we’re looking at a totalitarian state. This is a man who casually bans the 1812 Overture and speaks of old buildings with contempt, in contrast to the highly cultured V. Naturally, he started out as a Tory. The Fox News sequences with Prothero are also fun.

The structure of the film- sequences of V, from Evie’s perspective, intercut with the investigation of the murders and the Larkhill backstory, from Inspector Finch’s perspective, would work very well indeed if the pace wasn’t so damn slow. It’s fun to note that Rupert Graves, here playing Finch’s Detective Sergeant, has recently been promoted to Inspector in the BBC’s recent Sherlock.

There’s one particularly chilling moment surrounding V’s murder of the paedophile bishop; the bishop is under surveillance, but his disgusting proclivities are tolerated to the extent that there are jokes about “children’s hour at the abbey”. This demonstrates another horrifying fact about totalitarianism; it asks people to trade their freedom for security yet fails to provide that security. Someone like the bishop would never be tolerated in an open society. Interesting, by the way, that the paedophile should be a Catholic priest (he talks of “mass”). That’s one bit that hasn’t dated.

Stephen Fry is quite sweet as Dietrich, even though he’s pretty much playing Stephen Fry. It’s completely unrealistic, of course, that his little satirical skit would be allowed to reach the screen, but it’s fun, and the brutal reaction by the State is suitably horrifying. I’m not sure we need this character, though; he certainly wasn’t in the original and he’s basically V without the coolness. Yes, he illustrates the horrors of state homophobia, but the story of Valerie does that far more eloquently and effectively (I cried. And I usually have a heart of stone when watching films.), but that, of course, is lifted entirely from Moore’s original.

The whole thing is wrapped up quite nicely, I suppose, with V accepting he has to die for his moral failings but not before he kills both Sutler and Creedy in a fit of coolness. It’s also nice that part of Moore’s anarchist message is retained; V intends to destroy the old order but has no intention of dictating what should come next. I’m no anarchist, but this is a nice moment. Also satisfying is that Finch does in fact find Evie and the explosives, but allows the bombing to go ahead. But V’s dying confession of love for Evie falls fairly flat, given Portman’s wooden performance and the fact that V isn’t really a character at all. And it’s unfortunate that crowds of people dressed in V masks now makes me think of the Anonymous movement.