- Remember, remember the fifth of November,
- The gunpowder treason and plot...
- I see no reason
- Why the gunpowder treason
- Should ever be forgot.
A couple of days ago on Youtube, I saw trailers for V for Vendetta on Youtube. I remember the TIME magazine article talking about it when it came out in 2005, and all of a sudden, I got a mad urge to watch it, which has been nagging at me all day until late last night, when I watched it online.
As my history teacher said, "You have to go back into the past in order to understand the present."
So, a bit of background that will make sense later on...
In 1605 in Great Britain, a man named Guy Fawkes was part of the Gunpowder Plot, a group of conspirators planning to start a full-scale revolution by blowing up the House of Parliament. On November 5, before the planned explosion took place, he was found, captured and executed. Britons celebrate Guy Fawkes Day on November 5 to this day. And you can also give Guy Fawkes credit for making "guy" a word in English.
That's all historical fact. Now THIS movie takes place in a dystopian, totalitarianist Great Britain in the future. You have the secret police, news anchors that actively lie to civilians, propaganda, all those things. If you've ever read 1894 or studied dictator-run regimes like Nazi Germany, it's pretty much the same thing. About 400 years after Guy Fawkes's failed attempt to bring order to Britain, a man, fresh with fury about his torture at a detention center for "untouchables" many years ago, swears vengeance against his torturers and promises to, once and for all, defeat the corrupted government by finishing what Guy Fawkes started.
That would be when you toss in the pretty lady. *laughs* And no, she generally does not look like that in real life.
Natalie Portman (Padme Amidala from Star Wars) plays Evey Hammond, a young woman from a family of activists who, having broken curfew, is about to be assaulted by Britain's secret police. V happens to come across her, and he saves her. From this point unravels an chain of events and deception that threatens to pull apart a nation.
My opinion? Not quite as fantastic as The Phantom of the Opera (indeed, I don't think anything can be better than PotO in my opinion), but still all-around awesome and a force to be reckoned with. Hugo Weaving (who also played Elrond, Arwen's father, in Lord of the Rings) does a GREAT job as V. Because he wears his full-face Guy Fawkes mask 99% of the time in the movie (he goes unmasked for, literally, about 7 seconds total out of his screen time), Hugo Weaving had to rely on his voice and body movements to express what V was saying. And even though V does go unmasked for a while, the audience never sees his face, so facial expressions are out of the question......and as much as I hate to bring the somewhat obnoxious and shallow fangirl perspective into it, he has a sexy voice. I just kind of melted at some of his lines.
Which brings me back to the screenplay. This is one of those films where you can find an answer to pretty much all of life's questions. V is, in a way, God. Subtle wisdom rolls off his tongue like it's nothing. Some of his lines zip by the audience, but five seconds later come back to their ears with so much truth in them that they start nodding in agreement. Here's two of them:
"Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof."
"...A building is a symbol, as is the act of destroying it. Symbols are given power by people. A symbol, in and of itself is powerless, but with enough people behind it, blowing up a building can change the world."
Plus, although this is more of a futuristic thriller than a romance, there are several very dramatic scenes between V and Evey. I'm a pure romantic at heart, so I swooned during the sweeter moments.
They also managed to slip some very cool scenes into this movie. One of my favorites is when Inspector Finch, the man overseeing the investigation into V's scheme, explores the ruin of Larkhill and finds the connection that ties together all the events of the movie that take place over centuries. This scene is intercut with shots of V setting up thousands of dominoes (22,000 of them) into his personal symbol, then knocking all of them down with a flick of his finger. (As a side note, these extensive domino structures and their falling-downs can be seen on Youtube. It will probably blow your mind.) Even though I had already seen several videos of this kind of huge domino-setup, this was the first movie I'd seen with this included, and it was beyond cool.
I was skimming through the Wikipedia article on this movie at the same time and I read that many movie critics noticed many similarities to The Phantom of the Opera, both the novel and the movie. Both the Phantom and V are disfigured and wear masks to hide it. They are motivated by revenge and didn't expect love would come their way. They both have a thing for black, sword/knife fights and swishy capes. And Evey is Christine: Both women get a glimpse (or two) of V and Erik's home, which are both underground, and are forced to stay there for a period of time. In addition, Evey calls V a "mask-wearing genius", which is similar to what Christine says to Erik in the novel.
I also love the references to the number 5 and the letter V. Watch this movie closely, and you will see dozens. A lot of these are presumably details from the original comic book V for Vendetta is based off of, but it's still pretty cool. When V introduces himself to Evey for the first time, he performs a monologue that is saturated with the letter V. He holds two of his knives up in a "V" position before throwing them in one scene, and at one point, leaves an either accidental or intentional "V" mark on the walls of the subway after a fight takes place. In addition, V is the fifth-from-last letter of the alphabet, and E (for Evey) is the fifth letter of the alphabet. When V was held and tortured in the institution, he was held in Jail Cell 5. Because they used roman numerals for numbering cells, He was therefore in Cell V.
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Sorry about that, I know it was long! Anyway, a great movie, well-liked by critics and casual filmviewers alike, and well worth watching.
Some more pictures for your viewing pleasure...
(a random promo shot I found...It's cute that Natalie Portman is around 5' 3" while Hugo Weaving is a whole head taller than her...no wonder he got picked to play Elrond in LotR.)
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