Shakespeare penned “Macbeth” about the assassination of an ancient king shortly after Guy Fawkes’ failed attempt to blow up Parliament, where the reigning king, his heir, and the queen were scheduled to appear. The entire UK has been exuberantly celebrating the salvation of kings for 400 years. Much like how we all swim naked on Ivan Kupala, they blow something up on Guy Fawkes Day. Well, firecrackers. Moreover, every Briton knows that Guy Fawkes wasn’t the mastermind behind the Gunpowder Plot; he was just a young soldier. However, his hanging and subsequent disembowelment intrigued Dickens, and recently, Professor Dumbledore named his immortal parrot after him. Regardless of whether the anti-government conspiracy was orchestrated by Jesuits, or whether Guy Fawkes betrayed all his friends under torture, before the torture, while speaking to the king, he laughed and feared nothing. His great sense of humor was remembered by all present. This very moment is captured in the iconic mask. The British don’t need to have freedom as mental health explained to them.
Alan Moore and David Lloyd once launched the eternal national allegory into today’s political arena, resulting in a comic book. The remaining details are not allegorical but quite recognizable. A British dictator akin to Hitler, British camps reminiscent of Kolyma, a civil war in America as usual, and the action, à la Orwell, set in the foreseeable future. The further embodiment of this political game involved such well-known types as a trench-coated police inspector, a persecuted orphan, and a flamboyant homosexual entertainer. Plus, a Pickwickian club of scoundrels – a camp overseer commenting on TV news, a sanctimonious juror with a penchant for nymphets, and a mad professor in charge of the KGB. Add to this the masses drinking beer in pubs during the five-minute hate sessions. It turns out that with such a small number of figures on the political chessboard, one can depict the entire range of situations that the 20th century spent volumes on in “The Great Terror,” “The Gulag Archipelago,” or “The Swastika Curse.”
Unlike other comics about supermen and supergirls, the situation on the board strives only for the super-phrase “Parliament must be blown up” (after all, Cato the Elder explained to Rome that Carthage must be destroyed). To further illustrate this, McTeigue, the Wachowski brothers, and producer Joel Silver, in turn, only had to select the most typical moments from the comic, insert characteristic performers into them, and turn it into a spectacle. And that’s exactly what they did. In “V for Vendetta,” it’s utterly irrelevant who sings in the toilet in the morning, how many children the dictator had, or how many orphans the unknown soldier saved from gang rapes. Everyone sings, many have children, unknown soldiers always save someone. In the end, to avoid being blown up in Parliament, it’s enough for the parliamentarians to blow it up themselves. The film doesn’t want to convince anyone. Those who believe that it’s normal to be removed for mocking the authorities, and that the mockery itself is an anomaly, will never be convinced that they’re crazy. But the film insists that the comic-book dotted line of yesterday’s camps, today’s murders, and tomorrow’s freedom makes a scheme inscribed in Propp’s formula. With one single “post-Proppian” condition: the orphan’s function is to say “no” to an offer one can’t refuse. After all, when a rat gnaws through your throat, a “yes” will inevitably follow. But on second thought, it will have time to gnaw.
Casting Choices and Character Depth
The film also insists that Natalie Portman turned out to be, as in the joke, not a “heroine” but a “character actress,” with all the variety of emotions, while “V,” on the contrary, never took off his mask, so that the audience wouldn’t count on “human, all too human.” So that they would run up against their own “V” (“F”), and think bigger: all the figures are just masks for their performers. John Hurt was a hero in “1984” (1984) in IMDb"), so the current dictator is his classic flip side. Stephen Rea was married to an IRA terrorist for 20 years, who managed to give birth to three children in between stints in prison, so his trench-coated police inspector can conveniently repeat, “I’ve been in the party for 20 years,” instead of answering any questions. Stephen Fry, who plays the homosexual entertainer, is one himself and famous for the world record for the number of times the word “fuck” is used in a single live broadcast. By the way, he also spent time behind bars in his youth for forging credit cards. And even though all this is behind-the-scenes information, in the frame, it’s enough for these actors to show their mugs, and everything about human complexities is already written on them. Put them on black velvet – the game of ideas is guaranteed.
Visuals and Themes
But “V for Vendetta” didn’t just get away with black velvet; it didn’t miss the tricks and special effects. Only the explosions and fires don’t arise in a sequential presentation but, again, in comic-book discreteness, when a scarlet flower or a volume of the Koran is a trick equated to an explosion. The spectacle finally shapes the game, adding so many options that anyone can play, regardless of political beliefs. By the way, quite in the “computer” spirit, the film actually has two endings. For those who sing dissident songs (not to be confused with terrorists) – a happy ending, and for those who stand up for Mikhalkov for the third time in their lives – a great personal drama. But if you focus on aesthetics, “V for Vendetta” proves one essential thing. Life in the computer age is easier not only for fools. Our era is quite compatible with the entire history of culture that seemed to have collapsed in the 20th century.
Moreover, the “collapse” only meant the disintegration of the cocoon, from which something dazzlingly bright and beating its wings with stunning speed flies out.