V
I’ve been looking forward with cautious optimism to the movie of V for Vendetta. It’s based on the book by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, the first graphic novel I ever read. It’s set in a totalitarian near-future England (well, the 1990s were near-future when it was written), and is about freedom and imagination and loss and love and history and hope. And the hero is a terrorist. (The WarnerBros website delicately refers to him as a "vigilante.")
Lis at Riba Rambles wonders how the message of the first teaser poster (People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.) is going to go over in the current political climate. It’s a good question. I’m suddenly realizing that I’m not sure I’m going to be able to handle a movie in which the Houses of Parliament are blown up in the first five minutes.
The violence in V for Vendetta is pretty much all aimed at agents of the state and at symbolic buildlings. If innocent bystanders are killed in the process, you don’t see their broken bodies. I wonder how the movie makers are going to handle this — and I think they’re damned either way. If they don’t show it, they’re whitewashing terrorism; if they do show it, they’re glorifying it.
Remember, remember the fifth of November / Gunpowder, treason and plot. / I see no reason / Why gunpowder treason / Should ever be forgot.
The movie is being released in November, for the 400th anniversary of Guy Fawkes’ plot to blow up Parliament.
July 24th, 2005 at 11:53 am
V for Vendetta looks REALLY good
In case anyone wants to watch the trailer, it’s availible here.
For the most part, I am a libertarian and so this movie is going to have an instant soft spot for me in my collection of DVDs, unless it somehow is made to just suck when I see it …