V for Vendetta

[qos]

Go see it.

Comments

[femalegamer.livejournal.com]

If you haven't read the graphic novel, go read it. The movie was good, but the graphic novel blows it away. :)

I'm hoping tomorrow to go see The Libertine.

[qos.livejournal.com]

I just ordered the graphic novel from Amazon. I'll post about it when I've read it.

[professor-mom.livejournal.com]

So what's this movie about? Is there violence? Guns? Car accidents? Wondering whom I should take to it.

[qos.livejournal.com]

It's set in a future England, where a fundamentalist and fascist government has risen in response to war and a deadly plague. In addition to the usual crimes against the state that can get a person in trouble, it is illegal to own a Koran, and homosexuals are arrested and made to disappear.

Evey Hammond is an ordinary young woman who sneaks out after curfew to go to a dinner date, and is stopped by thuggish "Finger Men" -- state police -- who decide to rape her. She is saved by a masked figure called V, and her life becomes entwined with his. He uses the Guy Fawkes story as his theme, and is pursuing a mixture of violence and truth-telling to get the people to wake up and resist their government. And to wreak vengeance for the very particular crimes committed against him.

There is violence. V uses knives as his weapon of choice, and while there isn't a lot of gratuitous violence, there is some flying blood. It's definitely not something I would take my ten year-old daughter to see, although it's as much for the adult themes as the violence. There are images of people dying from a horrible disease in concentration camp type settings, and there are images of bodies going into mass graves.

There is also torture, although nothing graphic onscreen.

It's an adult movie, or one for thoughtful teenagers who can engage with the themes that underly the violence.

[amqu.livejournal.com]

It's set in a future England, where a fundamentalist and fascist government has risen in response to war and a deadly plague. In addition to the usual crimes against the state that can get a person in trouble, it is illegal to own a Koran, and homosexuals are arrested and made to disappear.

Sounds like Afghanistan. Except subsitute Bible with Koran.

[qos.livejournal.com]

I think it could be just about any country in which fear of the Other has overriden respect for personal liberty. (Assuming it was ever there to begin with, which in some places or people, it was not.)

As Frank Herbert wrote in Dune: Fear is the mind-killer. It is the little death that brings total oblivion.

I think "V" makes it clear that the people embraced a leader who assured them he would make them safe, protect them from "The Bad People" -- and before they realized it they were "protected" into a state of oppression.