V for Vendetta

The scene is utterly hopeless until an unnamed character disguised as Guy Fawkes (Hugo Weaving) emerges to save Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman) from government agents intent on raping her. The man behind Guy Fawkes’ eternal grin is an anarchist and a poet, a dissident tortured and horribly disfigured by experiments undertaken in the earliest days of Sutler’s chancellery. His imprisonment and torture banished fear from him, leaving him singularly capable of exacting revenge on those who tormented him, who eradicated his former identity and created V. His revenge coincides with November 5th, Guy Fawkes Day, but there are no coincidences, at least not in his mind.

Hammond is implicated in the destruction of The Old Bailey, masterminded by V. V. reveals to Evey that he intends to destroy the potent images of Britain’s old social order in the hope that it will inspire his countrymen and women to revolt against oppression and fear. Imbued with the spirit of Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” speech as well as the irrational sentiment of first wave punk rock, V. confides his life story to Evey, her own life jeopardized by her association with him. From that point onward, Evey comes to understand precisely what her parents stood for before their imprisonment and murder and why their unpopular actions were so vital to the survival of a free England.

Delayed by last summer’s London bombings, V for Vendetta illustrates the importance of upholding Enlightenment ideals and infuses them with an anarchist sensibility. Like dystopian classics 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, V for Vendetta makes a pressing case for vigilance and dissent at times when dissident voices are deemed unpatriotic, or worse, seditious or treasonous, and puts it all in an entertaining package, rife with violence, poetry and glorious spectacle. The circumstances surrounding the film’s production, notably its delay, make those virtues even clearer.