Sublime. Ridiculous.

[msconduct]

Two movies in a weekend, and the very definition of a mixed bag.

V FOR VENDETTA

Uh. What a dumb movie.

I’m not exactly a rabid fan of the Wachowskis: The Matrix was derivative, obvious and nowhere near as profound as it thought it was. They didn’t succeed in separating me from my cash for the second and third ones, but I hear they were worse. One of my friends actually fell asleep during the infamous car chase sequence.

So I wasn’t expecting much from V For Vendetta. First, Wachowskis. Urgh. Second, no Moore comic has ever made it to the big screen without being eviscerated on the way. And that, alas, is what’s happened to V for Vendetta. (Warning: spoilers abound.)

The great thing about the Moore comic is its ambiguity. On the one hand, V’s actions lead to Peace And Prosperity For All (or so we’re supposed to assume. Overthrowing governments is one thing, creating better ones is quite another. But that’s another film altogether). On the other, he’s a murderer, a terrorist, and quite obviously as mad as a bat on crack. And that’s what makes the comic so good. We’re never entirely sure what to feel about V, about the violence, about any of it. Hey, we’re adults. We know life is ambiguous, and don’t insult our intelligence by telling us otherwise.

Or not. And that’s the route the Wachowskis chose to take. In the comic, you’re afraid for Evey all the time: you’re never certain that V isn’t going to turn around with a flounce of his nice swirly cloak and rape her or slice or head off. In fact, that seems about an even bet with him looking after her. But we can’t have that in a movie, can we, children? Here, V is an avuncular figure to Evey, sweet, decent and protective. Even when it turns out he’s been secretly torturing her, it turns out it’s All For Her Own Good: her new stronger self is born and refined in the fires of adversity, or something.

Que?

Now, you might say that’s an ambiguous message: that it’s just V’s spin that the audience can choose to believe or not. Sorry, no: after a little weep, Evey swallows this line of shite whole, and the Wachowskis shove us into believing it too by following that with the ghastly Rain Scene, wherein she is Washed Clean Of Her Past. Spare me.

Then there’s the violence at the end: it’s balletic, poetic and all that other crap we’re supposed to get from slow-motion arteries spurting. This guy is a hero, full stop. As well as taking out any ambiguity about him, it slices out any ambiguity about the politics as well. As a result, it’s a fatuous little homily-by-numbers about fascism and a totally wasted opportunity.

And that’s leaving out the way the movie keeps tripping itself up with total stupidity. I’m not even going to get into the muddle-headed stuff about Guy Fawkes as a freedom fighter, because Moore’s responsible for some of that. But what about the terrible plot holes? A couple of particularly egregious ones: they say they won’t be able to track V because they can’t see his retinas, but they can’t figure out who Evey is either. Why don’t they check her retinas? Then there’s the touching scene at the end where V’s body is laid out inside the train. Leaving aside where Evey got all the roses from (and have there ever been fakier roses than in this movie?), how the hell did she move his body on her own?

More unforgivable, though, are the visual cliches. The rain scene was bad enough (complete with outstretched arms), but they couldn’t let it lie: just in case there was someone in the audience who’d been scrabbling round in the bottom of their popcorn container and had missed half the plot, they had to intersperse it with cuts of V emerging from the fire with his arms outstretched. Fire. Rain. Fire. Rain. Everybody got it yet? And what about the hilarious ending with all the evil henchmen standing around politely waiting for their turn to die? Then there were the unforgivably Holocaust-mining shots of naked corpses being thrown into a pit: that’s when I realised that there was no way this film was ever going to redeem itself.

Sorry, Alan: another dud. 1. Take the money. 2. Run.

JUNEBUG

This, on the other hand, was a total delight. Real, human, funny, touching, and yes, ambiguous. Yay, a filmmaker who understands that it’s more fun when you don’t join all the dots. One of the best films I've seen in a long time, and utterly recommended.

Comments

[badasstronaut.livejournal.com]

Gosh. It really is much quicker to endorse than diss.