... in which maybe it's a silly movie about a guy in a mask
Anybody who gives even the slightest bit of a toss about the V for Vendetta movie, get yourself here at once. Just, yeah. One of the best reviews I've ever read.
I'm a little bit miffed, actually, because that is exactly what I'd like to say, only there it is, already said and much better than I could have done. I'm kind of left with hardly anything to say - I wish I could come up with something as good and true as to complain that the politics of the film are unfair is to concede its fairness -- to protest the hints of Bush and Blair, of contemporary America and England in this dystopian future is to admit them, and to say the film condones terrorism, as V’s acts are labeled, is to say that oppressive regimes do not deserve to be brought down.
I mean, I'm not surprised there are people complaining that the film promotes terrorism. But it does make me sad. Did they really miss every layer of subtlety and ambiguity in the story? Did they see the film at all? I'm sure nothing I could say would get the point across to people who think so very differently from me, but this is the kind of film that makes me want to shout, let it ring across the mountainside that there are things worth fighting for, that if there's enough of us, we can change things, and we should not be afraid. It's a wake-up call, one that the vast majority of us desperately need, and OK, maybe it would be nice if the original comic book could do that, and it certainly tried, but it's a minority medium. Wake-up calls only work if people can hear them, and these days, that means movies. This film really gets that, and I think that's important enough to cancel out pretty much all of my canon-loving niggles.
And the more I think about it, the more I like some of the details of the film - that the huge nebulous collective of London in the V masks then took them off, were allowed to be individuals as well. We are all V, but we are also ourselves. And I loved that the really horrific things V did didn't include blowing up buildings. Killing people, torturing the woman he supposedly loves... those are shown to legitimately have a morally bad dimension to them, even if they weren't done with evil intent. But buildings, buildings without people in - they're symbols, and blowing up symbols isn't inherantly bad at all. Blowing up Parliament in time to the 1812 Overture is going to remain one of my favourite cinematic moments for a long time to come, I think, and that is why.
Also? I love how the real hero of the piece is a lesbian film star. Actual gayness, portrayed positively - as illustrating the power of difference and love and stories, even. Main female character who isn't stupid or useless (or a prostitute! yay!... sorry, Alan Moore, but really.) and who gets to have friends who don't want to shag her and who aren't useless either. God, it's awful and ridiculous that those things should be rare enough for me to be happy about, but I really am.
Something else that makes me happy is that today I am dressed like this, right down to the Ankh. My boots aren't quite as cool and my strappy top has slightly more laciness around the neck, but still. I didn't even mean to - I just wear a lot of black anyway and my Ankh is one of only three pieces of jewllery I actually wear, and then I looked in the mirror and realised. Hee. Though I kind of ruin the look by being mostly-blonde, alas.
I'm a little bit miffed, actually, because that is exactly what I'd like to say, only there it is, already said and much better than I could have done. I'm kind of left with hardly anything to say - I wish I could come up with something as good and true as to complain that the politics of the film are unfair is to concede its fairness -- to protest the hints of Bush and Blair, of contemporary America and England in this dystopian future is to admit them, and to say the film condones terrorism, as V’s acts are labeled, is to say that oppressive regimes do not deserve to be brought down.
I mean, I'm not surprised there are people complaining that the film promotes terrorism. But it does make me sad. Did they really miss every layer of subtlety and ambiguity in the story? Did they see the film at all? I'm sure nothing I could say would get the point across to people who think so very differently from me, but this is the kind of film that makes me want to shout, let it ring across the mountainside that there are things worth fighting for, that if there's enough of us, we can change things, and we should not be afraid. It's a wake-up call, one that the vast majority of us desperately need, and OK, maybe it would be nice if the original comic book could do that, and it certainly tried, but it's a minority medium. Wake-up calls only work if people can hear them, and these days, that means movies. This film really gets that, and I think that's important enough to cancel out pretty much all of my canon-loving niggles.
And the more I think about it, the more I like some of the details of the film - that the huge nebulous collective of London in the V masks then took them off, were allowed to be individuals as well. We are all V, but we are also ourselves. And I loved that the really horrific things V did didn't include blowing up buildings. Killing people, torturing the woman he supposedly loves... those are shown to legitimately have a morally bad dimension to them, even if they weren't done with evil intent. But buildings, buildings without people in - they're symbols, and blowing up symbols isn't inherantly bad at all. Blowing up Parliament in time to the 1812 Overture is going to remain one of my favourite cinematic moments for a long time to come, I think, and that is why.
Also? I love how the real hero of the piece is a lesbian film star. Actual gayness, portrayed positively - as illustrating the power of difference and love and stories, even. Main female character who isn't stupid or useless (or a prostitute! yay!... sorry, Alan Moore, but really.) and who gets to have friends who don't want to shag her and who aren't useless either. God, it's awful and ridiculous that those things should be rare enough for me to be happy about, but I really am.
Something else that makes me happy is that today I am dressed like this, right down to the Ankh. My boots aren't quite as cool and my strappy top has slightly more laciness around the neck, but still. I didn't even mean to - I just wear a lot of black anyway and my Ankh is one of only three pieces of jewllery I actually wear, and then I looked in the mirror and realised. Hee. Though I kind of ruin the look by being mostly-blonde, alas.
