FFVP Review - V FOR VENDETTA

V FOR VENDETTA

I have to say this right off the top. Like others I was astonished by the performance of Hugo Weaving who went through the whole of “V for Vendetta” hiding behind a mask and never showing his face. Nuance, vocal inflection, and physical grace expressed everything one needed to know about V - or did it?

I may be wrong and I may have to see the movie again to verify what I thought I saw. It looked like subtle shifts of light and shadow on V’s mask were used to make one sense the feelings and emotions of the man behind the mask subliminally. Only the filmmakers know for sure.

In 1999 I said this about “The Matrix”: “They’ve (Andy and Larry Wachowsky) performed a brilliant feat of cinematic alchemy by combining a visual and technological feast with an incredibly entertaining story packed with biblical and literary references, Eastern mysticism, the thrill of an action packed John Woo film, and ideas from some of the most imaginative futuristic movies ever made… “The Matrix” is a pop sci-fi masterpiece that uses its eye-popping images and mind boggling special effects to grab your attention while relying on the humanity of its characters to hold it.”

In writing “V for Vendetta,” the Brothers Wachowsky have held onto the humanity that has sustained their movies and replaced the biblical and literary references - save George Orwell’s 1984 - with their own brand of film homage, turning them inside out and making them uniquely their own. The movie is directed by James McTeigue, a protégé and assistant director on the Brothers’ previous projects, so it’s hard to say how much hands on the Brothers had once production started rolling.

V’s mask is said to resemble Guy Fawkes, an anarchist who attempted to blow up British Parliament in 1605. Taking his cue from history, V embarks on a similar attempt to bring down a futuristic English government that rules through fear, intimidation and control of the media. He’s a one man guerilla army seeking converts by intercepting TV signals to broadcast his message. V hopes the people will rise up and take back their country. He pins his hopes on Evey (Natalie Portman) to succeed him. She’s a young impressionable woman he rescues from the clutches of the thought police He brings her to his lair to break her spirit and help her rebuild it through the same torturous ordeal that made him who he is. A back story reveals his country’s rise as a world power and his victimization in a totalitarian experiment gone wrong. Once Evey flowers under V’s tutelage, “V for Vendetta” morphs into an amalgam of movie references.

The comparison to “The Phantom of the Opera” is obvious, but a rehash of the Zorro legend “The Mask of Zorro” with Anthony Hopkins teaching Antonio Banderas the ropes might be closer in spirit, especially when he wields a blade carving Vs. The world of V is a topsy turvy version of Orwell’s 1984 with leaders espousing a Christian nation living under a crucible of blood. John Hurt, who played the victim in the 1984 version of the novel, is the complete opposite here as the supreme leader Chancellor Sutler. Stephen Rea is the detective towing the party line whose moral compass slowly steers him in the opposite direction. The ending alludes to “Spartacus” with throngs of protestors wearing V’s mask when orders are given to shoot him on sight.

“V for Vendetta” is based on a graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd written during the Parliamentary reign of Margaret Thatcher in England. The Wachowskys have taken the basic premise and added enough touches in the screenplay to mirror their perception of the Bush administration. The movie is too way over the top to be taken seriously as a long lasting political manifesto. I think the movie makers are first and foremost entertainers who know how to tap into the pulse of the public and take the issues that concern them and turn them into a rip roaring tale. The visual tableaus like the blood red roses, falling dominoes that spell V, likewise in red and the destruction of Parliament in a blaze of fireworks signifying the fall of the old order and a rebirth of the new are the icing on the cake.

A few outstanding films that based on graphic novels

“ROAD TO PERDITION” (2002) - Hit man, Tom Hanks’ son witnesses a murder in this updated homage to 30s gangster movies. With the speed of a bullet, bonds of loyalty are broken, friendship is a thing of the past, and its every man for himself. Junior poses a threat to an Irish crime syndicate and his father poses the biggest threat of all. Paul Newman is the distinguished crime lord who sides with his son, Daniel Craig who has always been jealous of the hit man’s unique position in the family. Hanks’s hit man knows exactly what has to be done and he does it with imagination and cunning even at the forfeit of his family’s lives. Jude Law is the hit man for hire out to get him.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (2005) - Director David Cronenberg explores an undercurrent of violence that can explode at any time, in any place, in any situation in a small town in Middle America when one of its leading citizens kills two violent thugs trying to rob his restaurant. A one eyed mobster (Ed Harris) shows up to rattle his life claiming to know him. Vigo Mortensen is the mild mannered model citizen living the American dream with a successful business, the respect of his neighbors, a beautiful and amorous wife (Maria Bello) and two kids (Heidi Hayes and Ashton Holmes) who adore him. In Cronenberg’s universe an act of aggression can be spurred on by an act of love and an act of love can become an act of aggression. The enigmatic ending - both disturbing and quietly electrifying - left me spellbound.

SIN CITY (2005) - Dir. Roberto Rodriguez: The actors appear in a unique digitally created chiaroscuro landscape, looking as if they jumped out of Frank Miller’s graphic novels, the movie’s source. The hard boiled dialogue and acid laced humor often runs counterpoint to the action. “Sin City” is pure noir - darker than noir. One might even call it noir- fantastique.

“Sin City” has three central characters Hartigan (Bruce Willis) - the cop with a bad ticker after a child molester (Nick Stahl), Marv (Mickey Rourke) - an ugly bruiser out to avenge a hooker (Jaime King) who treated him with tenderness and dignity; and Dwight (Clive Owen) - a onetime news photographer who fell in love with the streets and the resident fringe dwellers who plied their trade there. Secondary characters crisscross from one scene to the next in a non-linear time frame much like Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction.”

“Sin City” is not for everyone. The visceral imagery, with its splashes of blood and gore in comic book colors, IS distasteful. But the action IS exciting, the characters ARE compelling, and much of author/screenwriter Frank Miller’s dead pan sense of sick humor IS horrifically funny!

I don’t know how to classify Harvey Pekar’s comic book series based on his life but the word graphic seems to fit the pattern of his life in the comic book format he created for himself so it seemed fitting to include it here.

AMERICAN SPLENDOR (2003) - Paul Giamatti had his first lead role as real life social misfit, Harvey Pekar, a self made cartoonist who portrayed the everyday drama of his life and friends from the VA hospital where he worked into an adult comic book series that gave the movie its title. The filmmakers, Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, alternate inserts of the real life Pekar with Giamatti in the dramatic action until the difference between the actor and the man is indistinguishable. Hope Davis is equally good as Joyce Brabner, the perfect mate and brains behind Pekar’s marketing of his comic book life. “American Splendor” is sad, funny and poignant.