V for VendettaDirected by James McTeigue
Written by Andy and Larry Wachowski
Starring: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, John Hurt, Stephen Fry
It's an absolutely amazing movie.
Based on a DC/Vertigo comic book, V for Vendetta is about futuristic England that has come under ultra conservative totalitarian rule of a nazi-like government. In comes codename "V", the terrorist/hero (interesting combination, one of the highlights of the movie) who seeks to revolt by overthrowing the government on the heavily symbolic Guy Fawkes day.
In comes Evey Hammond, an everyday girl who stumbles into V and hears his view on government, and the rest of it... is... about... vengeance.
Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman) receiving a terror makeoverThe line that V utters in the trailer "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people" pretty much sums up the theme of the movie. As citizens, do we endorse terrorism? We do not, but watching V for Vendetta, one cannot escape positioning V as the true hero of the film. In some unexplainable way, we see the world through his mask, and almost sympathetically, let terrorism justify itself.
It is an amazing film. Natalie Portman delivers a strong performance as a good girl turned activist, and the Chancellor of England (John Hurt) despite having most of his scenes displayed through another screen, fires bullet rounds of his government propaganda with devastatingly powerful speeches and dialogue. Stephen Rea's character, as Chief Inspector Finch, is perhaps the character that we follow the most closely. He is like us, an audience, witnessing the events unfold, and whether his mind changes is one of the key storylines.
Revisiting Fascism through Chancellor Sutler (John Hurt)Soundly cut, aptly photographed, and psychotically pleasing to the eye, V for Vendetta is a rare hit for March. It was supposed to be released August/September last year, but was postponed due to the terrorist bombings in London last year (which has some resemblance to the film).
The only downside to the film is perhaps the terrorism itself as well. The film leans too heavily to the terrorist camp, and fires every cylinder there is to let it's pro-freedom ideals take flight. It is too obvious, the stand the movie is taking. Ironically, the movie can easily be described as a propaganda to expose propaganda.
Overall, V for Vendetta is realistically futuristic, elegantly scripted, and politically charged, all achieved without forsaking the comic-book atmosphere. The film is almost what one can imagine as the complete comic book adaptation.
It's nice to have a surprise this early in the year.
Rating: A-
Remember, remember, the 5th of November
In a decision that elicited considerable surprise but little praise, Oscar voters on Sunday selected Lionsgate's Crash as the best picture of 2005, passing over the favorite, Brokeback Mountain. David M. Halbfinger and David Carr commented in the New York Times that the movie academy "turned its back" on an "unflinching gay love story" and awarded the Oscar to "a moody kaleidoscope of racial confrontation in Los Angeles in which every character is at once sympathetic and repulsive." Tom Shales in the Washington Post wrote that the decision will no doubt produce arguments over "whether the Best Picture Oscar to Crash was really for the film's merit or just a cop-out by the Motion Picture Academy so it wouldn't have to give the prize to Brokeback Mountain." The Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr called the decision "one of the most stunning upsets in Oscar history." His colleague, Wesley Morris, wrote: "The memo from Hollywood seems clear enough. Better to reward the movie about people who clean our closets than the one about the men who live in them." And in a blistering commentary, Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan excoriated the motion picture industry for its choice, claiming that despite the box office success and favorable publicity Brokeback had achieved (he did not mention the numerous awards from critics' organizations) "you could not take the pulse of the industry without realizing that this film made a number of people distinctly uncomfortable. ... In the privacy of the voting booth, as many political candidates who've led in polls only to lose elections have found out, people are free to act out the unspoken fears and unconscious prejudices that they would never breathe to another soul, or, likely, acknowledge to themselves. And at least this year, that acting out doomed Brokeback Mountain." Finally, Turan concluded that Hollywood "likes to pat itself on the back for the good it does in the world, but as Sunday night's ceremony proved, it is easier to congratulate yourself for a job well done in the past than to actually do that job in the present." The reaction was similar from overseas critics. On the Indian website Rediff.com, Aseem Chhabria wrote: "We will never know how many more Academy voters picked Crash over Brokeback. But this much is clear: While Crash is a fine and important film, in choosing CrashBrokeback, the Academy members showed their conservative, safe and non-controversial.
