Pinoy.Urban.Blog

Remember, remember the fifth of November
The gunpowder treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

– an old English rhyme

“V for Vendetta” is set in a dystopian Britain 20 years into the future. Drawing inspiration from Guy Fawkes and based on Alan Moore’s graphic novel of the same title, the story is about a lone assassin’s quest to bring down the brutal totalitarian British government by blowing up the parliament building on November 5 and a mild-mannered young woman Evey, whose family were among the thousands who perished in the government’s secret experiments with bio-warfare. On the night that Evey is to meet with a secret dissident, she runs up to wayward members of the secret police from whom the masked vigilante ‘V’ saves her. He eventually invites her to witness the bombing of the Old Bailey–being a government building is a symbol of the regime’s power. Unfortunately for Evey, surveillance cameras caughter her and the man in the Guy Fawkes mask, thus was tagged as an accomplice. A case of hide-and-seek and self-discovery follows among an amalgalm of detective sketches that make up the whole of Vendetta.

In spite of the less than astonishing action sequences and sometimes-annoying score, ‘V for Vendetta’ is nothing but a political treatise on world affairs. The Wachowski brothers, who masterminded The Matrix trilogy, composed an action-packed and emotionally charged commentary on political events that touch upon the occupation of Iraq, terrorism, anarchy and dictators’ (and his henchmen’s) egomania. Aside from allusions to world events and history, Vendetta is loaded with references to literature (Dante’s Inferno and Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo), philosophy (Marcel Proust) and even pop culture (The Girl from Ipanema). And what Filipino would not find attribution to People Power?

While most of Warner Bros.’ marketing blitz revolves around Natalie Portman and her cropped ‘do, the real star of this piece is still Hugo Weaving, who, even though never showed his face throughout the film, delivered a real punch with his vocal acrobatics. The actor is best remembered as Agent Smith in “The Matrix” and as elf-with-snappy-eyebrows Elrond in The Lord of the Rings.

Watch the movie and be inspired to stand up against all those forgettable little dictators armed with puny lies to silence the citizenry.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 27th, 2006 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Movies & Theaters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.