Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
Different filmmakers take different approaches to adapting the dense, heady, heavily-literary work of Alan Moore. Zack Snyder did his damnedest to translate as much of Watchmen as was humanly possible from comic page to live action, often frame-for-frame and word-for-word, while Stephen Norrington threw out virtually every identifiable feature of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen besides the bare-bones premise.
Perhaps the most successful, or at least most well-liked, attempt at adapting Moore’s work came in 2006, when the Wachowskis, hot off concluding their epic Matrix trilogy, co-wrote and produced V for Vendetta, inspired by the 1988 comic by Moore and artist David Lloyd.
Directed by James McTeigue (first assistant director for the Matrix movies, later second unit director for Speed Racer), V for Vendetta follows the action and imagery of Moore and Lloyd’s work (relatively) closely, but shifts the text’s concerns from the UK’s grappling with Thatcher-ian fascism to the Aught’s post-9/11 paranoia over terrorism and government overreach.
V for Vendetta stars Natalie Portman as Evey, an ordinary young woman caught outside after curfew in the police state that is near-future Britain. Evey is rescued by a mysterious vigilante in the Guy Fawkes mask that all your irritating friends wear now. Known only as V (voiced/played by Hugo Weaving, although an unknown amount of footage is Weaving dubbing over work done by James Purefoy, who left after six weeks of filming), the vigilante soon reveals himself to be a terrorist hell-bent on raining chaos down upon the totalitarian government and avenging his own, personal grievance against certain individuals within that government. Evey finds herself drawn into V’s inner circle, struggling to survive while tensions mount as every day they draw closer to the infamous Fifth of November.
V for Vendetta drew controversy back when it was first released in 2006, with the film’s release date delayed after actual terror attacks in Britain (which eerily mirrored material in the film) left no one in the mood for a comic book portrayal of same. Today, V for Vendetta is largely remembered remembered for the iconic Guy Fawkes mask, which has so become ingrained into popular culture that many may not even remember remember the origins of the symbol in the first place.
But today, we remember remember not only a mask, but the movie that the mask came from. With so many of the political concerns depicted in the film still urgent, if not worsened tenfold, does V for Vendetta still pack near the same punch?
Did you get a chance to watch along with us this week? Want to recommend a great (or not so great) film for the whole gang to cover? Comment below or post on our Facebook or hit us up on Twitter!
Next Week’s Pick:
We move from the stark terrors of dystopia to the gentle magic of Ireland with Song of the Sea, an animated adventure from the same team that created the highly acclaimed The Secret of Kells. Like Kells, Song of the Sea was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards, drawing praise for its distinctive animation style and lyrical narrative. The plot follows lonely boy Ben (David Rawle) as he discovers that his mute little sister Saoirse is destined to play a major role in the future of the fairy folk of Ireland, which places her in the target zone for forces both good and bad, light and dark.
Song of the Sea is available to stream on Netflix Instant.
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co!
Our Guests
I have to admit to mixed feelings regarding V for Vendetta. The performances are quite good — Hugo Weaving managing to be surprisingly expressive for a man who spends the whole film in a mask, Natalie Portman working extra hard to make her interactions with said masked man work, and a who’s who of excellent British character actors in supporting roles. Also the action sequences are very exciting and are both shot and edited well. And I don’t really have a problem with the changes from the source material — at least insofar as it made sense to update the socio-political commentary from Thatcher’s England of the 80s to the post-9/11, Iraq War era. In fact some aspects of the film remain just as relevant today, given the current political climate. However, in making a more streamlined action thriller, the politics are not just updated but also simplified to the point that it is far easier to read (misread?) V as a more conventional anti-hero than he is in the graphic novel. This is compounded by the way that the Guy Fawkes mask has been co-opted through pop culture osmosis toward all manner of political/anarchic purposes. I suppose it’s unfair to blame the film for the way its iconography might be appropriated by others in the real world, but having taught the graphic novel it is striking to me how many students I’ve seen who (primarily due to the film) want to map the plot of both into a standard good guys and bad guys superhero formula when the source material (and, perhaps to a slightly lesser degree the film) often subvert that formula. So I guess what I’m saying is I like V for Vendetta fine, but I am put off by the way its themes (already simplified from the comic) have been reduced, diminished, and/or misinterpreted by so many. (@T_Lawson)
The Team
A month or two ago, I saw our esteemed founder and editor Ed Travis post about how V for Vendetta feels even more powerful in today’s day and age. It made me think hard on the film and ultimately decide to rewatch it. I’ve been coming back to it in my mind ever since.
The comparisons between this Trump administration and the totalitarian fuckos in V for Vendetta are not too difficult to see. While the current administration haven’t gone quite as far as High Chancellor and his cronies, it’s not all that hard to imagine them doing so if given the chance.
Divorcing the film from the politics that inspired it or the politics of today is difficult because it’s clearly meant as a political film; but if I were to look at it simply as a Sci-Fi action flick, it’s a great one still. The action is stellar and the concepts are unique. It makes for an enjoyable watch with its great fight scenes and wonderful explosions.
All said and done, this is a must watch for those who haven’t seen it and a must re-watch for everyone who has. Freedom forever! (@thepaintedman)
This was an odd one. On the one hand, V for Vendetta is a slick and confident piece of mainstream science fiction. The Wachowskis and McTeigue were clearly assured of their own abilities by this point, and the team (along with cinematographer Adrian Biddle, who passed away shortly after completing the film) do a nimble job of merging their aesthetic with the work of Moore and Lloyd. There are certainly moments (Evey’s torture/transformation, Inspector Finch’s (Stephen Rea) vision of past, present, and future events linked as dominoes) where V for Vendetta feels as daring, as alive, as ecstatically human as the rest of the best work that this team has put out.
But it’s all just a little too slick, a little too pat. Not to harp on the adaptation front (I read the comic years and years ago and did not much care for it) but Moore was comfortable with a degree of ambiguity that the movie steamrolls over, replacing complex political philosophies with eeeeeeeeeeeevil government baddies and daring, romantic anti-heroes whose every indiscretion and monstrous action is actually more or less morally above-board. The simplistic approach robs the story of its teeth, and probably plays a large role in why edgelords flock to this movie and that mask as a totemic representation.
I hate to sound down on the film, as I do quite like it. But V for Vendetta ultimately feels like a somewhat pat genre exercise from a collective of so much more, like a last gasp of normal air before the deep plunge into the frenetic, transcendent work that would define the Wachowski sisters’ more recent output. (@theTrueBrendanF)
I’ve always been a fan of V For Vendetta, which is probably not a surprise to anyone who has seen my Twitter handle. Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman are dynamic in the lead roles, especially considering that our (anti)hero is always obscured behind a mask. They’re supported by equally memorable characters— Stephen Rea’s Finch as a conscientious operator within the system, grappling with the realization that he’s actually one of the bad guys. Stephen Fry’s Dietrich, an undercover homosexual who hides that part of himself simply in order to survive, and who, like V, keeps a secret collection of art and literature — contraband. And then there’s the cinematic nod to 1984, casting John Hurt in the role of the oppressive Chancellor, a huge disembodied head barking orders from a large screen.
V For Vendetta, especially in its original graphic novel form, presents politics that are at times ugly and complicated (do ends justify means?), but the main themes — freedom from tyranny and the rejection of hatred — are not. What’s startling to me, and the reason we picked the film for this week, is how much more relevant this vision of a future England has become to the contemporary US. The cult-like regime of a vaunted figurehead, deliberate misinformation, State-run media, and faux-Christianity was dystopian fiction in 2005. In the short time since, the reality in which we live has become perceptibly closer to this vision. One need not use their imagination to draw a straight line between the hate-filled bellowing of Prothero, the “Voice of London”, and the insane ranting of Alex Jones.
Paradoxically, it’s a work of subversive art, and yet also a completely mainstream entity. That alone seems like a miracle, and one I’m thankful for. (@VforVashaw)
Next week’s pick: