Radicalising the multiplex with V for Vendetta

The critics sniffed snobbishly at V for Vendetta, but it could just be the most subversive political film of the Bush/Blair era. By turns thoughtful and aggressive, Vendetta cuts through neo-con double-speak and inspiringly rehabilitates words such as "freedom" and "democracy" by re-investing them with their true meaning. Most impressive of all, it dares to question what separates a terrorist from a freedom fighter, and vice a versa, and to ask whether sometimes it is not only just a matter of defintion, but of who is doing the defining. Incredibly, few critics talked about the film's political import upon its release, approaching it as merely just another (supposedly) verbose action movie from the makers of the Matrix. Get revolutionary and check it out for yourself on DVD, now.

 

 

 

V for Vendetta was dismissed by most critics when it was released theatrically, but it is arguably the most subversive political film of the Bush/Blair era. In mainstream discussions since 9/11, the question that few have dared to ask is: Why? Why does terrorism happen? What makes people turn to violence? "Why" is the elephant in the corner that hardly anyone wants to acknowledge. To do so demands that one break the taboo against seeing terrorists as human beings and move beyond the facile contention that they are simply evil people.

V for Vendetta pissed on caution and thrust such questions into the multiplex - an explosive mix of politics and popcorn. No wonder critics turned their noses up.  Where Good Night and Good Luck lurked timidly in the shadows of the art house, Vendetta had urgency and balls. The elephant was standing in the middle of the room and trumpeting for all its worth. Even the cast and director were putting their heads above the parapet, almost an unheard of thing in the tightly controlled world of Hollywood publicity.

"I don't think you can ever condone something like [9/11]," says V for Vendetta director James McTeigue, an Australian living in New York. "But I guess there are reasons why people do those things. To a certain extent, America has hijacked the debate about [terrorism], just because it has happened there."

Conceding that the 9/11 attackers might have been motivated by more than envy for a way of life, as the US administration claimed, requires a degree of self-examination and a willingness to eschew a morally black-and-white world view. Oliver Stone's purportedly apolitical World Trade Center, which covers 9/11 from the perspective of survivors, their families and the rescue services, is unlikely to enhance understanding either of the event itself or the reasons some people are prepared to give up their lives in order to deprive so many others of theirs. V for Vendetta, however, may be precisely what is needed, giving people permission to talk about terrorism in terms that are not simply reductive but human, and which address the issue of responsibility. As the film's permanently masked hero, V, played by the Australian actor Hugo Weaving, says: "Every action has a reaction."

"Terrorism is a word that's bandied around a lot at the moment, and the more we use it, the less it means; and the more we use it, the less we have to ask ourselves why someone is doing these things," says Weaving. "The important thing is to ask why."

V FOR VENDETTA IS AVAILABLE TO BUY ON DVD NOW

Read the full version of the original feature in The Scotsman