About Me

Well, the clever reader would always figure out who I am and "about me" from the way I write, so we will leave it at that, shall we?

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

THE VERDICT ON “V”

(In the event of Hostel Video shows, a review on the movie "V for Vendetta")

A vagrant makes villainy virtuous; versing veracity through veritable vengeance and vicious violence, vivifying the verismo of democracy with verve and vigour, vitalizing the viewer’s vesper with a vintage vespertine. This carper, victimized with the verboten venture of vivisecting last night’s video, attempts to vocalize the vox populi…

Inspired by the Guy Fawkes Gun Powder plot, in which a group of catholic conspirators led by one Robert Catesby also including Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the House of Parliament on 5th November 1605, ‘V for Vendetta’ is a comic book series by Alan Moore set in the dystopian future UK.

Looked upon through the veil of time, Alan Moore’s imagination runs into the near future Britain after a limited nuclear war has left much of the world destroyed. In this future an extreme fascist party called ‘NORSEMOUTH’ has arisen after supposedly inflicting some parts of London with a virulent holocaust. ‘V’, an anarchist revolutionary donning the Guy Fawkes attire and mask campaigns an elaborate, violent and theatrical display to bring down this atrocious tyranny.

‘V’, himself an enigma whose history is only hinted at and is also clearly suggested that he is disfigured because of the fire and explosion that he used to engineer his escape from the Detention Centre at Larkhill, is a mixture of an actual advocate of anarchism against the brutal fascism and the traditional stereotype of the anarchist as a terrorist. A well read anti-hero quotes verses set in the Iambic parameter by various writers including Shakespeare [“Twelfth Night”]. Though he is out to seek revenge like a true hero of classics showing qualities of fortitude, valour fearlessness, he also weeps at the face of the most powerful force- LOVE.

Kudos to Hugo Weaving [a tinker in the memory bells of a stressed, satire and sarcastic addressing to “Mr. Anderson…”] who puts up an ebullient and tremendous display of hueful histrionics in his portrayal of the masked V. A special mention must be made for his variety filled voice modulation mingled with ample gesticulations which enlivened the huge spectrum of emotions through the performance making it into a sublime Magnum Opus as he did not have the aid of a single facial expression. Panache comes to him naturally. A commendable effort by the Wachowski brothers for bringing V to the silver screen and can be certainly pardoned for the reversal of the order of explosions of the Old Bailey and the House of Parliament as opposed to the original in which they are swapped. It served as a fitting crescendo and our V’s “Viking Funeral”-so termed by Alan Moore.

Critics still debate about the fact that whether the protagonist is sane or psychotic; hero or villain. But this carper leaves that to the experts and just classifies him as one of the greatest characters in the literary and comics world.

A well deserved pat on the back for AVID for a thought provoking evening, clearly highlighting that whether in a democracy the people should be afraid of the government or vice-versa. Well to conclude here goes

“Remember, remember around the ides of November

the video show that night

I certainly do know why that video show will paint

a poignant and profound sight”

1 comment:

Sothoughtashwin said...

Very frankly you lost me in the first few lines.
And in case you are giving a preview for a movie show, this gives too much away.
The very purpose of a review is, I believe, to generate interest. With such high flown elucidation, you might have not only lost your audience (in them trying to make sense of what you are saying) but also made them lost interest in watching the movie.