I went to see "V for Vendetta" because I read a rave review of the movie on Libertarian internet site, LewRockwell.com of all places. And I thought, 'Hmmm, if the intelligentsia like this flick..."

But then I saw the thing. It seems designed for a teenage mind with samo-samo Hollywood fight scenes and fabulous explosions. The fractured messages that it contains alluding to our age of bogus terror and government lies are very, very tame indeed.

It seems like films with an obfuscated message are popular in Hollywood right now what with 'Syriana' being lauded highly as well. There was little real intellectual meat in that movie either. Not if you've read books like Nafeez Ahmed's "Behind the War on Terror" and other like it (perhaps more in the mainstream). I could enjoy seeing a film that presents a bit of a puzzle but "V for Vendetta" is just, well, juvenile.

There's no grist for the mill in this movie. Not if you're an avid reader of current events, opinion and polemics of various sorts. Those kinds of articles and films are much more concrete and have been in the public internet domain for some time...so why present a movie that supposedly contains the same material in quasi-code?

You can torrent Eugene Jarecki's "Why We Fight" if you search around. Much better.

Sorry, folks, the emperor has no clothes.

Carl -- appreciate your views, but disagree. I have been thinking about "V" for a full day now -- many embedded, complex themes. I agree with you about Syriana, which I saw and thought was a poor film. I thought Why We Fight was terrific -- though it could have done without Vidal, whom I really like generally but who did nothing helpful for the Jarecki film. I also screened Our Brand is Crisis recently -- and that too is superb. I don't pretend to be a culturally literate reviewer -- but I did like V and think that it does have clothes.

All the best,

Steve

Well, I was wrong once. I suppose it could happen again. But, perhaps you could briefly explain just how you think this film IS complex?

It simply borrows from what has been written about overtly and concretely in articles, books and blogs that are polemical. Polemical things haven't been in the deep mainstream until recently. Now, with the growing disenchantment with the Bush Administration, it's ideology and War, polemical ideas are on the rise. Movies like "V" just seem to be shy about it.

I was much more entertained this week by the three-night Charlie Sheen/911 expose on ShowBiz Tonight. Wow! And I've never heard anyone cram so many thoughts into 6 minutes as Alex Jones of PrisonPlanet.com. What a foghorn. WooHoo! It was like watching a contender preening for the camera - like a prize-fight is brewing in the realm of political ideas and Alex Jones is wearing a cape and grim visage.

But you still can't find any commentary on sites like TWN or HuffPo. Even if you think the 911 debate is nonsense, it's a helluvalot more contentious and interesting than "V for Vendetta".

http://www.911blogger.com/2006/03/full-cnn-charlie-sheen-coverage-in.html

Let's get real. Vendetta is from Hollywood. It's a movie. Ergo, it is entertainment (and great at that). If you want a polemic that fits your ploitical obsession and depression (and YOUR way of thinking) go read Das Kapital. Vendetta is adapted from a comic book and reads like one. It was written in the time of Thatcher and is English through and through (how many times did they say ballocks?(As in Never Mind the Ballocks, Here's the Sex Pistols) 6 times). Aside from the 'American Civil War in the Midwest and talk of rendition, this is about updating Guy Fawkes and taking back a tyrant run country, none of which pertains. Sit back and enjoy it. Again, never mind Carl Nelson, it's great.

V for Vendetta does have many complex and interesting ideas, most of which come from the source material, Alan Moore's graphic novel. I had high expectations for the film and was utterly disappointed at nearly every level. I wasn't expecting it to remain true to Moore's story, but I did expect the film to flesh out the ideas that it presented. Instead all I saw were a bunch of pseudo- anarchicistic diatrabes and a lot of explanation of ideas. What the film lacked was both artistic merit (the story was told simply and the love story between V and Evey felt as forced as it probably was) and new political insight. The Wachowski brothers added nothing to the source material, infact they made it shallower, as if to force feed it to people who might not understand it if they were "challenged" by complex ideas. I suggest you read the graphic novel (try to get over the fact that it is "just a comic book") so that you can atleast tell what the movie could have been.

Read the Moore/Lloyd TPB!

finest -- hate to be a nitpicker, but it's 'bollocks';

re 'v' -- good movie, but should have been great. but still, so many words or scenes that i hope will resonate with the wider audience and make them think of the images produced during bush's reign. imagine the terror when that black bag is pulled down over your bound and beaten body. think of those who have been kidnapped by unknown security forces and imprisoned in unknown places. for a story written with maggie thatcher in mind, it certainly captures the essence of bush.

too bad this film isn't taking hold -- it would have been awesome to see groups of 'v' turning up a fredo's fundraising gigs as he travels the land.

Just saw V today and really liked it. I never read the book so have nothing to compare it to, however.

There were several things that resonated well with me. The shots of people in many different places all watching tv, and the little girl getting up disgusted and walking away, not believing what the media's reporting. Evey's relief after telling V about her family and admitting she's scared all the time. So many people hiding parts of themselves or the things they enjoy for fear of punishment from a theocratic society.

Ok, I'll stop here, since I don't want to be a spoiler.

BTW, this was the #1 box office movie last weekend. The telltale sign of success or failure will be this weekend. A big drop off would be bad. I personally will take as many people as I can to see it next week.

TheOtherWA-that's the state,the one with a few more sane people than the city in the east. ;)

Just saw it tonight. It was good, especially the first half. But the end was a little rushed and the Matrixcizing of the knives was just too much. The acting is what saved this film for me.

All in all, I'd rather re-read 1984 and It Can't Happen Here while listening to the Phantom of the Opera. And I hate Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Agreed. The matrixy effects were a bit much, but since it was based on a comic/graphic novel, that should be expected. I can't say it really bothered me.

Alan Moore wrote "V for Vendetta" years ago when he was in a fit of disgust at Margaret Thatcher's England: "It's mean and damp and I don't like it here anymore," I seem to remember from the introduction.
As literary fantasy, I've always been a fan of the book. Moore and the artist are up front about borrowing from 1984, then stirring in elements of Batman and The Shadow (if they found of quoting from the Oxford Book of English Verse).
The premise is simple, and doesn't pretend to be Lord Acton: what if one of those 'disappeared' people survived the government camps and came looking for the government that put him there? For me, the most important part of the story comes when the girl Evey, about to be taken "out behind the chemical buildings and shot", discovers a contraband note left by a nameless prisoner for whoever might find it in this time of plague. In the note Moore tries to sum up his definition of simple humanity and humane conduct in the face of despair.

Moore has since apologized for the violent cynicism in pop culture inspired by "V" and "Watchmen", and I'll happily recommend his later work for any readers without prejudices. At this stage in his career he seems capable of writing almost any genre, from Mad-style humor to occult esoterica to police procedurals.
This is the only time Moore has sued to have his name removed from a film's credits. Since he HAS taken screen credit as the source material for some of the most execable movies in living memory, that says something about how he feels about the Wachowskis.

One more irony, for now: watching this film might be the only time Americans think about what it really means to put a black bag over someone's head and declare them a friendless enemy of the state. Like many a murder, it only seems to matter if it happens to a pretty white girl. Instead of wearing the hipster's "fan sneer" because it's not "Z" or "The Sorrow and the Pity", this film might become an entry point to an awareness that politics do matter.

The amazing thing about 'V for Vendetta' is that amidst the explosions and whirling knives it clearly shows the audience how imprisonment and torture without trial or hope radicalize people who would otherwise just put their heads down and get on with their lives. It's a lesson that neocons seem incapable of learning--push people far enough, and some of them will resort to violence. And some few of those will figure out how to blow up buildings.

And only in Hollywood movies do they ever win.

I might be sounding like a European intelectual here, but this film is as refined and reveiling as your uncle's tool shed. Haven't you read Celine, Kafka or Tolstoi? Are you still not aware that the US has been a menace to South America for the past 100 years such as Europe has been a menace to the rest of the world for the past 350 years? Steve, you wrote here a couple of months ago that US interventions have been mostly benovolent througout history. Please, the US has more post 2nd world war deaths on its name than the soviet union: 2 million in the far east alone. The pax Americana has been good to Europe, the pax Americana hasn't excactly worked for the rest of the world.

Mellow out folks, it is a movie/story

Good entertainment indeed with lots of nice twists

I hope many see it (and think about it) & am awaiting the DVD (to follow the many "background" symbols/threads)

Well worth the effort/money to experience

Maybe "We the people..." should get the mask

"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist thinks it will change; the realist adjusts the sails." - William Arthur Ward

Actually, I have read Celine, Kafka or Tolstoi, and you seem to be missing the point. This film will be seen by thousands, if not millions of people who are never going to be exposed to those authors, don't have the literary skills to decipher them anyway, and have been reared in a culture that rejects and actively mocks complexity.
(I'll let you have the Kafka, and I agree about post WWII interventions, but it seems a little odd for you to invoke a Nazi collaborator and a Christian anarchist as exemplars.)

Sorry, folks, the emperor has no clothes.

Posted by Carl Nelson at March 25, 2006 07:09 PM

Sounds like you are/were looking for a docudrama Carl.

I saw the movie today and found it to be well written considering the genre it is in. This may be the only thing that can get through to an american public that continues to believe everything that their cable news networks feed to them. At least I think it would make anyone who has seen it think twice about what they see on the news. I felt that the movie was top notch and the acting was pretty good. The ending was good too. This is the kind of movie that can change the course of thought in a society with a very basic conceptual effort.

If we read the classics of the past, many of them resemble the popular works of our time, with the meaning embedded within and emerging from the natural flow of the story rather than hung on the exterior of the story like Christmas ornaments. Read the Iliad, and you'll find a work chocked full of action and sex. The Odyssey is no different. What kept these works from simply being hackwork was the fact that within all that crowd-pleasing material, there was a subtext running that allowed people an experience of points of view and events that they could not have easily gained on their own.

V for Vendetta has its share of crowd pleasing action, but it serves a story that gives people an experience of what it means to have your own government as an enemy, and the value and pride of being able to refuse that government the last inch of yourself.

The evolution of the people's rebellion against the movie's police state is a brilliantly managed bit of storytelling, economically drawn out, well written. In the end, the heart of the movie is not with the masked avenger, but with those he provokes into action and resistance.

That is where politics really works its magic: among the people, by their responses. Those who wish to stem the tide of similar evils should take a lesson as to where to aim their efforts.