V dropped it like it's hot.
Not only is that a little homage to the brilliant V Dub (representing Deutschland!) commercials, racist though they are, but it's also my critique of
V for Vendetta, which I regrettfully saw tonight. Indeed,
V dropped something on me tonight: ass.
I'm a little embarrassed to say it, but I had rather high expectations for this film--and not just because Natalie Portman has a certain flair for shining up pretty drab movies. I was really eager to see a superhyped, big-budget film address fascism in a way that was unambiguously linked to our current political climate of fear. But, to paraphrase the comment of a participant in last week's MRG conference,
V for Vendetta is just "a fascist film about fascism."
It's not that I minded all of the film's hamhanded dialogue and symbolism. To be sure, it became tiresome, but sometimes agitprop is necessary to make a point. The problem was that the film's point was hopelessly confused.
--The film is supposed to be about revolution, but the protagonist, the mysterious V, spends his time tracking down the people who tortured him in a dissenters' prison (and we never know the nature of his original dissent). His revolution has nothing to do with fascism at all. It's solely predicated on revenge, so at least the title isn't completely misleading. Frankly, the "revolutionary" motive is so polluted that V could just as easily be tracking down gas station clerks who stiffed him on change instead of corrupt fascists. It just so happens that the people who fucked him over were part of the fascist government, but that's really immaterial to his desires. This is the most repugnant aspect of the film: it portrays revolutionaries as terrorists inspired only by hate, devoid of any totalizing political agenda.
--The film tries to make the point,
Batman Begins-style, that such crusades are not about "the man behind the mask" so much as they are about the ideas those persons embody. That's a fair enough claim, but then the film systematically contradicts itself, valorizing the man in glamorous hero shots. Evey, Portman's character, seems to have more respect for V's conviction than for his methods, again privileging man over idea. Sigh.
--This egoism plays out in V himself. Evidently the guy spends a lot of time setting up dominos so that they'll fall into an artsy representation of his initial. He paints his initial all over town instead of graffitiing any meaningful populist slogans to inspire the people. He's so vain that he convinces Evey to watch one of his demolitions, knowing that doing so would put her in the eye of the fascist surveillance. V also (spoiler coming........) convinces Evey that she's been caught by the fascists just so he can dramatically "liberate" her in a narcissistic display of his own cunning. This liberation has nothing at all to do with freeing the people from fascism.
--The film also spends an inordinate amount of time queering its plot, showing the plight of several homosexuals under the fascist regime. That social commentary is welcomed, but what about the racing or classing of the impulse to fascism? Those elements, if present at all, have been buried under a deluge of special effects and Wachowski-trademarked philosophical soliloquies.
What
V for Vendetta does accomplish is an envigoration of the broader debate on terrorism. Is V wrong to endanger civilian lives in the pursuit of his (quasi-)political goals? Can you be a terrorist if you represent a groundswell of popular support? At the very least, the film can jump-start discussions about the messiness of what is so often falsely posited as a binary of state and terrorism. But that's definitely not worth the $7.
