Saw V for Vendetta last night.... OMG

[WildEyedLiberal]

It was incredible. The film is set in a future dystopic fascist Britain, but the parallels to our own time are all too evident and terrifying (the movie even makes explicit reference to the Iraq war a few times, noting that it was the catalyst for the fascist takeover in England and the dissolution of the government in the United States). The High Chancellor delivers his diktats via an imposing Big Brother-esque nationwide broadcast system, authorizing blacklists of "subversive" materials, the disappearance of "undesirables" from dissenters to homosexuals, and overseeing complete and total surveillance of the citizenry, from hidden cameras to wiretaps to ruthlessly enforced curfews (NSA spying, anyone?). The biggest bombshell of the movie, which I won't divulge for those who haven't yet seen it, lies in the government's willingness to do ANYTHING it takes to gain absolute control over the people, promising to "protect" them from the fear of terror that they created and demanding only complete submission and total compliance in return.

The questions the movie raises are inescapable. In the event that a government were manufacturing fear and terror in order to secure complete fascist control over the populace, what then is the duty of the citizenry? When is it morally wrong - and when it is morally right - to resist, violently if need be? Is it really treason to fight a government if the government has betrayed the people and the laws which it swore to uphold?

The Bush enablers are already rushing to decry this movie, saying it glamorizes terrorism (the old "terra" bogeyman again; when are they going to realize that fewer and fewer chumps by the day are buying it?) and that it unfairly demonizes the theocratic Christian extreme right (note to right-wing Christians: if you find enough semblance between a fictional evil fascist dictator and Bush that it offends you, you MIGHT want to examine why, in fact, those parallels exist, rather than blame someone else for pointing them out). It speaks volumes that the PNAC cabal and their minions are going into spin-cycle overdrive to discredit a movie about resisting a fascist dictatorship. Somehow, I think the Founding Fathers - especially Thomas Jefferson - would have loved this film.

Bottom line: go see this movie. You won't regret it. As a further incentive, Lewis Prothero, the bloviating, vain, and thoroughly loathsome TV talking head known as the "Voice of London" is a hybrid between Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. The shower scene is hilarious.

[TayTay]

1. My husband and son liked it

I will try and see it this weekend. I'm glad you enojoyed it.

So, is V a terrorist or a freedom fighter?

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

~H. L. Mencken

[babylonsister]

2. Thanks for your excellent review! It's on my short list. nt

[ProSense]

3. Excellent critique. Thanks.

I'll definitely have to catch this. I use to love going to the movies, but lately I wait for the DVD. There are exceptions and this is a good candidate.