"Remember, remember,
the fifth of November,
gunpowder treason and plot.
I see no reason
why the gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,'twas his intent
to blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow:
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah! A penny loaf to feed the Pope.
A farthing o' cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah! Hip hip hoorah!"
That would be the "Bonfire Prayer" commemorating Guy Fawkes day, when the disaffected, persecuted Catholic Fawkes attempted to blow up the Parliament building in an increasingly hostile, persecutionist Protestant England. The holiday (November 5th) is still celebrated to an extent as a cause for celebration and burning Fawkes in effigy (he was caught and put to death, the plot foiled shortly before execution). Excerpts of the verse also find themselves in the new Hollywood piece V for Vendetta, with Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman (with a shaven head!) and others. The film did not strike me as typical action fair, even though it was directed by the Wachowski bothers and does come off as a slick, sci-fi-comic flick. While the cinematic underpinnings are quite well done and far far more absorbing than either Aeon Flux or that other forgettable "revolutionary in a totalitarian society" movie that's currently out, the real questions and nature of the plot are what really matters with this film. Yes it's shot in a gorgeous, moody light. Yes, the music and art are haunting and ethereal and o-so-perfect in a world where most art and culture have been seized, banned, and destroyed in an Orwellian-distopian-Nazi state. Yes, the movie is incredibly quotable (seeing as how half its quotes are lifted directly from Shakespeare and other cultural greats....).
But let us address the real meat of the film for a moment. This is a film that advocates anarchy and terrorism as sometimes the best road towards a terminal solution. The destruction of urban landmarks in this film most certainly could not have been depicted a few years back with global sensitivities still delicate after 9-11 and governments passing infantile legislation that bears a shadowy resemblance to the early steps by the totalitarian state in the film. Instead, this film is delivered to the national audience in a time when the American President's approval ratings are at a historic low and there is a good deal of grumbling about the loss of good will, the general state of affairs, the impingement of individual freedoms, and so on. This is a film for anarchists and libertarians. It is a banner around which to rally and scream for change, in the real world and the fictional. The directors (whether this is the case in the original comic from the 1980s I do not know) even make the controversial decision to robe the totalitarian state in the fabric of a theocracy, giving the megalomaniac and paranoid dictator a claim to a God-given mandate to rule over the British people (as America dissolves into nuclear war, waste, and a general Sodom and Gomorra). Eerie and pointed, thinly veiled political commentary within the vehicle of a blockbuster, to be sure.
I walked away with a few points of careful consideration. Like the film Syriana, this film shows the careful indoctrination of the future terrorist activist and the charging with a sort of holy crusade. In Syriana, we have a religious cultural activist acting to better improve the lot of his family and people in the belief that he himself has nothing better for which to live. In V, Natalie Portman is put through an intense psychological reworking that also leaves her deadened to fear and pain and, again, with nothing better to live for. Fearless, in a state of indifferent nirvana, these terrorists/activists (yes, it is a game of wordplay, isn't it? Do we shape our views with words of positive or negative connotations?) march forward to cause cause in the hopes of inciting change, revolt, destruction..... but to what end? That is the second point I take away from this film. V achieves his desired end--but to what purpose. The old government may be in shambles, tattered and in pieces, but what next? What is this golden state of anarchy? How will it actually play out? Shaped in my youth by Lord of the Flies, I must say I have a dim view of the success of these noble experiments in governance. Yes, as V says, a government should be in fear of its people, and not vice versa. However, a people without a government shall devolve into chaos and vice--the actions in this film are not creative destruction, but mere destruction. There will be no society of which to speak in the aftermath of these actions. What then is freedom, if we all exercise it without limit? If we then infringe on each others' freedoms through our limitless personal freedom, what then results? I begin to ramble, as my thoughts spill out onto the electronic page, unshaped and ungoverned by previous considerations and drafts.
See then that I am indeed intrigued but troubled by this film--clearly the ruling government was in violation of the people's mandates and natural rights and needed overturned. However, were the methods chosen by V and his accomplices the proper vehicles for change? Or were they mere instruments for rebellion and revenge? Were his actions primarily shaped by hatred and vengeance? Or was there something more? And, if we assume that there was a higher cause, and a charge of hope for a better tomorrow, what practical grounding did this lofty hope surround itself with. What is hope and destructive action without supportive and reinforcing plans and strategy for a more just and equal tomorrow. The cyclical revolutions in the past century that have seized upon mankind have too oft devolved into a shadowy parallel of the previous governments that found destruction. In the PRC, we have a communist elite infringing on individual freedoms in just as comprehensive a manner (if not worse) of the previous emperors and warlords. Stalin replaces the Czar with as ruthless a neo-feudal rule. Africa continues to swirl in a mix of ruthless dictatorships. There have been peaceful transitions to successful democracy, but revolutions of blood that have not exercised previous mandates with a structure for, by, and of the people have seldom (if ever) succeeded. These are my fluid thoughts.
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