V

Today started out so promising. The sun was shining, the air was cool but not cold, and that damp, earthen smell that signifies spring was in the air. Then the clouds rolled in. The day is still fighting for good weather--if this was a weather report, there'd be a bit of sun peaking out behind the cloud graphic--but it's not looking great.

I went and saw V for Vendetta with Mr. B last night. Here's Ain't it Cool News's review in full:

A few weeks ago, the British House of Commons passed a law banning the “glorification” of terrorism. This proposal is viewed as frighteningly broad, as the word “glorification” could have many interpretations and definitions. Obviously, this lack of clarity brings with it the potential for tremendous abuse of authority.

The timing of this measure is grimly ironic given the impending release of V FOR VENDETTA, an incendiary film that passionately renounces such lawmaking, and constantly reminds us that the obliteration of freedom – both personal and broad – tends to start in simple, subtle, and apparently well-intended ways.

At its heart, V FOR VENDETTA is not a terribly complicated story. It’s the journey of three characters. One towards vengeance, one towards awakening, as the third tries to understand the slipstream of destruction left in their wake – ultimately finding himself enlightened by the journeys of the other two. Save for a few twists and turns (which aren’t particularly twisty or turny), V’s plot is so simple that it hardly merits regurgitation:

In a totalitarian Britain, where asking questions equals dissent & citizenry/press know that their government has over-consolidated its power, an “every person” (Natalie Portman’s Evey) chances into a firestorm of dissidence unleashed by a man called “V” (voiced and performed by Hugo Weaving, although he is never seen.) Evey’s eyes are slowly opened to the truth about, and the dangers of, power. How easily it can be attained, and how fully it can misused. More importantly, she learns that the most potent word that can ever be spoken by anyone, anywhere, is a simple word with only two letters: “No.”

The movie is almost ridiculous in its simplistic structure. But “structure” isn’t what V FOR VENDETTA is about. It’s about essence, and meaning. V is very much an allegory for human events: The Nazis of yesterday, the insidious dangers facing our world today, and what our failure to recognize such patterns means for the world of tomorrow. Notions like the United States’ Patriot Act, Britain’s increased video surveillance of motorized traffic, America’s pre-knowledge of (and possible inaction towards) 9/11, and the movement to dilute the legal sanctity of homosexual relationships are all pointedly evoked. More subtle, but equally dangerous, trends are also touched upon (“If you’re not for the war in Iraq, then you don’t love our country!”); their dangers are vividly (and viscerally) illustrated here.

V FOR VENDETTA is far from perfect. The pacing in the film’s final quarter feels decidedly less urgent than the material that came before it, and the movie leaves are about ten jillion questions unanswered – some of which are better left unanswered. Despite such quirky shortcomings, V FOR VENDETTA is a frequently potent, consistently stirring film whose greatest impact rises not from the story it’s actually telling, but in its relationship to the world we live in. In the reality V FOR VENDETTA urges us to create, the film itself would probably never exist – because it would not need to exist. If only we were there, and if only that were so.

But in the here and now, V is a constantly chilling and sometimes humbling wake-up call. A rather brilliantly considered one at that: It’s certainly possible to argue the artistic merits of the film. But if one argues what the film is saying, then we effectively becoming one of the very people the film is warning us against…much like the dynamic forcibly created by V himself.

It’s challenging to accept that the ideas worth dying for are not always the ideas our governments tell us are worth dying for. It’s even more uncomfortable to swallow the notion that we, as a populous, are responsible for the actions of our government simply because we put The Powers That Be in office. “If you want to see who is responsible…” intones V, “Look no further than a mirror.”

After the movie, I looked in the mirror. I’m not sure I liked the person I saw – as a citizen, or as a father. This being said, my twelve year old understood this movie. He felt it. He got it.Maybe I didn’t do such a bad job after all. And, maybe there’s hope for us yet…

Alan Moore has this great way of using the superhero genre to comment on humanity. In The Watchmen, his heros are just as broken as the people they fight, and perhaps more so (the character Rorschach's back story actually fits the psychological profile of a lot of serial killers). If the lens were turned just slightly, we'd see them as monsters, or at the very least, desperate neurotics.

V uses its hero to ask the question "what is the difference between a freedon fighter and a terrorist?" And mostly its answer is "The direction of your lens." And though it was written 20 years ago, it has a startlingly poignant message about the times that we are in now--about what causes a populace to give up freedom to an increasingly dictatorial government, about the way fear can can be used to play upon our minds. Go see it. It won't disappoint.

Strange Dreams...
I've been fairly silent, I know, about The Strange Dreams of Nobody in Particular. Mostly this is because Shiny and I are still in the "writing and structure" phase of the project, where we write story after story and then arrange and rearrange them on a big whiteboard and try to see how the entire massive endeavor will look to someone who isn't us. Which is why I haven't had much to say. Writing about writing is a bit like dreaming about sleeping.

Suffice to say, the project is coming along. These days I alternate between thinking, "Oh good...we're right on track," and, "Oh God...we'll never get this thing off the ground! It's too big." And I think a lot of it depends on what time of day I happen to glance at the whiteboard.

One bit of good news is that Ed and Steve of ...i think not fame have agreed to write songs for the show. Those two can write a mean folk song. We had a preliminary meeting with them a couple of weeks ago, and it left me very excited.

Finally, speaking of Mr. B, he has a blog and has finally given me permission to put up a link in my sidebar. Which I will do right now.