Friday, May 26, 2006

V For Vendetta


The movie "V for Vendetta" starring Nataley Portman as Evey and Hugo Weaving as V,mainly talks about the manipulation of the governments with the media and dramatizing the effect of this manipulated media on the public.it also deals with the major problem facing the world nowadays,the terrorism threat . The movie touches on the theme of vengence,which turns out to become a revolution calling for a socio-political change.

For those who didn't watch the movie:Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow
:

"The story is set in the near future, when Britain is ruled by a totalitarian regime called Norsefire. It follows Evey Hammond ,a young woman who, at the start of the film, is rescued from state police by a masked vigilante known as "V".After rescuing her, V takes Evey to a rooftop location to witness his spectacular destruction of the Old Bailey. The regime explains the incident to the public as a planned demolition, but this is shown to be a lie when V takes over the state-run TV station the next day. He broadcasts a message urging the people of Britain to rise up against the oppressive government on November 5, one year from that day, when V will destroy the Houses of Parliament.
Evey, who works at the TV station, helps V to escape. V brings Evey to his lair, where she is told that she must stay in hiding with him for her own safety. She stays for some time, but upon learning that V is killing government officials, she escapes to the home of one of her superiors, Gordon Dietrich However, the state police raid Gordon's home shortly afterwards, and Evey is captured. She is incarcerated and tortured for days, finding solace only in notes left by another prisoner, Valerie. Evey is eventually told that she will be executed unless she reveals V's whereabouts. An exhausted Evey says she would rather die, and, surprisingly, is then released. Evey discovers that she has been in V's lair all along, and that her imprisonment was staged by V. By forcing Evey to experience what he had gone through long ago, V hoped that Evey would understand that our integrity, "the very last inch of us", can be more important than our lives.
Evey initially hates V for what he has done, but comes to realise that having faced her own death, she can now live without fear. She leaves V, promising to return before November 5.
In the meanwhile inspector Finch is collecting evidence to capture V,and frinds out the truth about how Norsefire came to power.An also the truth about V's origin.Fourteen years previously, Britain had suffered from war and terrorism. The ultra-conservative Norsefire party led a reactionary purge to restore order; so-called enemies of the state disappeared during the night. The country was deeply divided over the loss of freedom until a bioterrorist attack occurred, killing about 100,000 people. The fear generated by the attack allowed Norsefire to silence all opposition and win the next election by a landslide. A cure for the virus was discovered soon afterwards. With the silent consent of the people, Norsefire turned Britain into a bigoted totalitarian order, with their leader Adam Sutler as High Chancellor.
However, the viral catastrophe had actually been engineered by Norsefire as a ploy to gain power. The virus had been engineered through deadly experimentation on "social deviants" and political dissidents at Larkhill detention center. V had been one of the prisoners, but instead of being killed by the experiments, he had gained heightened mental and physical abilities. V eventually destroyed the center and escaped, vowing to take revenge on Norsefire's regime.
As November 5 nears, V's various schemes cause chaos in Britain, as the population grows more and more intolerant and subversive towards government authority. On the eve of November 5, V is visited again by Evey, and shows her a train which he has filled with explosives in order to destroy Parliament through an explosion in the abandoned London Underground. He delegates the destruction of Parliament to Evey, believing that the ultimate decision should not come from him. He then leaves to meet Party leader Creedy who, as part of an earlier agreement, has agreed to bring V the Chancellor in exchange for V's surrender. Creedy kills the Chancellor in front of V, but V does not surrender, instead killing Creedy and his men. V, mortally wounded in the fight, returns to Evey. He thanks her, and then dies. His body is placed upon the train with the explosives.
Evey is about to send the train down the track when she is discovered by Inspector Finch. However, Finch, having learned much about the corruption of the Norsefire regime, allows Evey to proceed. Meanwhile, thousands of Londoners, all wearing Guy Fawkes masks, march on Parliament to watch the event. Because Creedy and the Chancellor are dead, the military stands down in the face of a civil rebellion. Parliament is destroyed by the explosion. On a nearby rooftop Evey and Finch watch the scene together and hope for a better tomorrow."***
***Quoted from www.wikipedia.com.

"V for Vendetta" has a very high political tone,tackled from the very begining of the movie.starting by the revolutionary scene dramatizing "Guy Fawkes' Gun Powder Plot". The action developes in the near future London,governed by a totalitarian government that manipulates the media to serve it's own needs,and where corruption is spread everywhere. Curfew hours at night are imposed on the public,and anyone who is found in the streets during these curfew hours is severely punished by the corrupt police forces,which is clear in the scene when the police agents were trying to rape Evey.
The movie is also successful in portraying the effect of the media on the unaware public,who is ignorant about the political matters in the country,as they are only fed by the information given to them by the unsincere media.When V blew up the Old Baily ,the employed annoncers on the news channels stated that it's an act of demolition under the government's responsibility,which is the exact opposite to what happened.When V took over the news station and declared his responsibility for the Old Baily's explosion,there were trials from the police to capture him and they accidently killed one of their agents and failed to capture V.Ofcourse the public didn't see V and don't know him,so to cover up for their failure the employed announcers stated on the national television,that the police was successfull in bringing down the "Terrorist" by putting the picture of the dead police agent.
It also touches on the subject of the origins of the governments.London was under the Norsefire totalitarian government that would do anything to stay in power,which has it's parallels in real life.In the movie The Norsfire rose to power when there was division in the country,so they devised the bio-terrorist attack so that the public would have to turn to their own government to protect them.the same as what Hitler did when the Reichstag building was set on fire on febuary 27th,to propagate anti-communism and gain the public on his side in the elections.Which is also done in Western and Arab countries to keep the public under their control.
The main motivation behind V's actions is vengence for what the government did to him and the unhuman treatment that he was treated in prison,where he and the other prisoners were the experiment rats,on which the government experimented it's biological weapons and tortured them.It's in prison that he developed his character and gained his name "V" ,the latin word for number five,he was prisoner number five.So under all this oppresion he rebelled and destroyed the facility and became this new hero V.He devoted himself to change the socio-political status and bring justice to the oppressed.
While on the other hand Evey is weak because of the involvement of the government in her life since her childhood.Her brother died in the bio-terrorist attack,while her parents were taken from their own house,in front of her eyes by government agents because they protested on the government's reaction towards their investigation in the bio-terrorist attack that caused their child's death.So since then and she's always living in fear,till V emancipated her from these fears by subjecting her to death. Evey's example may represent the case of the whole public living in fear waiting for a saviour like V.
The ending scene were V left for Evey the decission to send the train down the track,and interrupted by agent Finch,after he too is enlightened by the truth about the origin of the government-he was blindly serving ,is a wonderful scene, as V left the decission for her because her cause was purer than his her motivation wasn't like his,vengence,but bringing the truth and justice to the oppressed public.
The treatment of the identities in this movie is brilliant.V is not specified as a certain character but V himself admits that we are all V,oppressed by the totalitarian regime,and refuses to reveal his own identity.He is disguised under the face of Guy Fawkes ,the great revolutionary,to send the message to the people that they are all rebbelions and should wake up and open their eyes to what is happening around them.
The movie's success depends on whether it conveyed it's message or not,did it open the publics' eyes not to blindly trust in the media and start to investigate more to reach the truth.The question now is:Did YOU get the message?Are YOU ready to find the truth?

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home

الاقصى