V for Vendetta
Yesterday's entry about Rachel Corrie rang in my ears all through V for Vendetta, James McTeigue's shooting of the Wachowski Brothers' latest output. The story is taken from a graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, and I understand that Mr Moore is not happy with the adaptation. That's how it goes in movieland. Twenty years from now, someone will make a period, pitch-perfect film of the original.
Interestingly, V for Vendetta is true to the airless and remote atmosphere of most graphic novels and their comic book predecessors. There is a stunning want of windows with a view. One ascends from the Underground to a rooftop in a matter of moments. Hugo Weaving, the actor playing V, never shows his face, but everything is done to vary the effects of light and shadow on his mask. The important shots seem taken from drawn frames. Except for a heartbreaking episode in the middle of the film - meant to show England's slow but sure slide into dystopia - V for Vendetta recycles the same compositions, with the same characters (the people watching television, for example). There is a strict economy to the feel of the picture; only certain emotions and responses are interesting. That's both characteristic of graphic novels and the marker of a sick society.
The film tells its (confected) backstory very well, so I won't. It's about how a democracy became - well, a dictatorship, certainly, but not a totalitarian state. People seem to be leading recognizable lives. Despite the future setting, the clothes are pretty much what you'll see on the street today. The filmmakers have been careful, in other words, to show these complicit citizens as folks like us. Out of fear, they - we - let the fascists take over. (In the movie, the United States has sunk into a ruinous civil war and has run out of almost everything.) I jumped aboard the Impeach Bush bandwagon about fifteen minutes into the show; we'll see how that lasts before I say more, and if I don't, it didn't. Chancellor Adam Sutler (John Hurt) rules England from a bunker, and until the very end, all we see of him is his craggy, badly-barbered face, and, behind it, his lower teeth. He's about as pleasant as a scorpion. In all but one of his scenes, he addresses his principal lieutenants from a giant TV screen.
One of these is Dascomb (Ben Miles), the director of broadcasting. Another is Finch (Stephen Rea), the chief of police. The KGB cognate appears to be Creedy (Tim Pigott-Smith, and I hope he gets counseling for playing despicable characters again and again.)
Who is V? Well, he is a comic book hero. Although mortal, he has a supernatural way with knives, and he can really take a beating. He likes to weave Shakespeare into his punctilious conversation. He rescues Evey (Natalie Portman) when she is intercepted by a couple of Creedy's toughs after curfew, on her way to dinner with Dietrich (Stephen Fry), a TV comedian. V takes the pretty young woman to his lair, and keeps her there for a few days. Little by little, troubled pasts emerge. Evey's parents were executed as dissidents. V was subjected to malignant biological tests that eventually went awry, rendering him a superhero. (Who wants to know?)
The most interesting performance is Stephen Rea's, as his Finch shifts his allegiance. Mr Rea's perennially sad face registers the stale defeat of life in a broken society. Rupert Graves, as Finch's aide, Dominic, looks sharp and still somehow boyish.
Mr McTeigue, who has directed many second units, knows what he's doing, and V for Vendetta barrels along to the final uplifting fireworks. I don't know how often I'll want to watch this movie again, but it gets its important message across with great power.
