Ignore, ignore, the flick’s a bore. V for Vendetta, an otherwise preposterous, pompous movie, does play an interesting Hindi remix over the closing credits, ‘BKAB‘ by Ethan Stoller. Listen here.
Also check out a fellow Chicago musician, Arthi Meera of the luscious voice.
The track mashes up covers of ‘Churake Dil Mera’ from Main Khiladi Tu Anari and ‘Pardesi Jana Nahin’ from Raja Hindustani. It’s all set to a thrash metal beat straight out of a video game, or the video game called XXX which masqueraded as a movie. It reminds me of the Sanskrit track over the credits in Matrix 3, ‘Navras’ by Juno Reactor (thanks, WesternGhaat).
Adapting an earnest graphic novel requires a lighter touch than the Wachowski brothers can muster. Subtlety and allegory demand a fictional veneer. The movie assaults the abuses of Dubya, but it’s almost entirely literal: prisoners wear black hoods and orange jumpsuits, the Koran garners sympathy, there’s a Bill O’Reilly stand-in, the V is an upside-down anarchy symbol, the evil regime’s logo is St. George’s Cross in black. Its treatment of discrimination against gays and lesbians (but not transsexuals) is thoroughly and probably unintentionally camp.
The filmmakers talk down to the audience by dissolving from the present into identically-framed flashback and back again. It’s like those action shots repeated three times in Bollywood flicks, just in case you didn’t get it the first time. The dialogue is full of leaden, soapy howlers, and the audience was unforgiving. Some lines can only be pulled off in noir, not in a brightly-lit room by a Shakespearean fop in a pageboy wig and a geisha mask. A key plot twist is so ludicrous, it had the audience groaning. The action is minimal, V has no real super powers, Natalie Portman coasts on her looks. John Hurt goes way over the top as a raving, spittle-flecked dictator. Poor Hugo Weaving spends the entire film behind masks and prosthetics — scale plus ten for that one.
In the words of the film, these artists use badly-penned lies to show the truth. Like walking in on someone fisting his ham, that’s just awkward all around. It’s the W’s, those exhibitionists again.
Watch the trailer. Here’s the NYT review.
Update: Slate links (thanks, Michael).
S for Shame, I wanted to like it. I just re-read the graphic novel and was already thinking that a lot of it wouldn’t survive the transition to the big screen. No wonder Alan Moore had his name removed from the movie (although who could blame him after “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”?).
Sigh, Hugo Weaving is never gonna be able to play a “normal” human being, is he?
It’s got good reviews in the UK
Yes but a lot of that’s to do with certain political connotations regarding current events and the actions of certain political leaders and so on…..
Well, I guess I’ll wit til it comes out in video stores…..but I am checking out the music as we speak! Fisting his ham? Um erm? Ain’t gonna go there…
Gret review!
Ham. Fist. Awkward.
Manish, you’ve outdone yourself. You should be proud of this one.
(But the first version was even better, by virtue of being even more awkward. Shades of Joyce, and Roth)
Hugo is probably one of the most underrated actors out there. How many actors have a resume that covers playing an elf king, a The linked textdrag queen and an overly aggressive cricket team captain out for blood….
that was him?? Wow! I remember watching the series in India when I was a kid…was too young to understand it, but enjoyed the cricket 🙂
Yeah, I love Priscilla too…he’s just so good in everything he does.
And not to forget the role of an out-of-control computer program, shall we? “Mr. Anderssssonnn…” ooooooh
Is it my imagination or did he play Douglas Jardine a lot like Mr.Smith?
It may only work in the UK. I don’t think a brit could see a Guy Fawkes mask and think geisha with a pageboy. The image is far too iconic to be seen as anything else. Guy Fawkes is as iconic as Ravana and as central a british bad guy. To invert and retell the Fawkes story is daring, and I suspect that for brits, that is the main appeal. Your criticisms then would be like similar criticisms levelled at the Ramayana serial, i.e. superfluous.
Question: given that the flaws you have outlined are endemic to and characteristic of bollywood, how can you overlook them in some genres and not others?
Clarification – the story goes far beyond the classic Guy Fawkes story. The extension gave birth to the central plot twist that you said didn’t work. However, the plot twist was loved in the graphic novel, and worked for the Matrix, so the directors probably figured it would work again.
BTW, I don’t have any great hopes for the movie, and while I enjoyed the graphic novel, I’m not the biggest fan. I just want to speak up for the other side here.
“It reminds me of the Hindi track over the credits in Matrix 3, a track which I suspect was also StollerÂ’s.”
Manish , the track you refer to is actually called Navras , by Juno reactor and the lyrics are actually sanskrit shlokas from the Vedas.
Ha. The gauntlet has been thrown down. Them’s fighting words. 🙂 I’m still gonna see this movie this weekend. It seems kind of…mutinous. Plus Portman.
An important reason why V was the desi character:
And an important bit of etymology:
I love Guy Fawkes day. We get to burn an effigy of a Catholic for trying to fuckin’ blow up our parliament. And the fireworks. And it’s always around the time of Diwali so there are two exciting things to look forward to at that time of year.
Yes. Yes, it would be 😉
Thanks for the remix, Manish.
(And, wow, lunch has got to be vegetarian today).
i have my hair cut short, and my gf says i kind of look like natalie portman in this movie….
It’s amusing to load up the blog with this at the top and banner #96.
That’s what I wear everytime I leave the bunker 😉
A.R. Rahman’s ‘Bombay’ theme inserted into the background in ‘Lord of War’ was surreal.
interesting review especially after all the rave reviews it’s been getting. shall definitely check it out this weekend.
OK, it took me three full minutes of hard thinking to solve this problem.
glows with pride
Ta da:
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/images/SMB96.jpg
It is truly droll.
Thanks for the link and all, but naturally, I disagree with you about the movie. I’ve seen it twice now and I really love it. Literally made me laugh and cry. You linked to the the negative NY Times review, but c’mon, 3/4 of the reviews have been positive (according to Rotten Tomatoes.)
And what’s the relevance of linking to that story about Larry? Larry’s a friend of mine–a funny, warm, generous person and a loyal friend.
Thanks for the link to Arthi. She is a phenomenal talent. Her CD will be done soon and she’s gonna take the music world by storm.
Yeah, well, people liked Narnia too 🙂 Badly-written dialogue makes me break out in hives.
Dude, there’s nothing wrong with being transgender. Is the Gothamist post inaccurate? The movie is heartfelt about LGBT themes, it’s interesting context.
I just think there was an unfairness to the tone of the post. Think LGBT themes are interesting? Why not link to The Windy City Times, a LGBT publication which called V for Vendetta “the best fictional protest film in decades … and terrifically entertaining, too”?
Can’t comment on Narnia; didn’t see it.
having watched the movie..there’s so much that can be said about how bad it is and how it fails at so many levels…but it’s late….and manish said it best..
“V for Vendetta, a preposterous, pompous movie.”
C’mon – V FOR VENDETTA is a GREAT movie – what are you talking about?
Everyone in America and England should see it.
Our societies are living lies…which have led to the death of at least 100,000 people in Iraq. Our media culture is so pressured by the right-wing, its difficult for truly important messages like this to make it into the mainstream press.
Natalie Portman does a great job in this movie – and for those of us who have brothers or sisters who went to Harvard – we know her real last name is Hershlag and she love CANNABIS. 🙂
I saw the movie opening night and the americans that filled the theater loved the movie. During credits many spoke about the blatant similarities between our shit government and the Brit one. I found it entertaining and think that most negative reviewers talk shit just so they stand out.
The book is good yes, but we’re talking about movies…a straight translation would have bored the shit out of everyone.
Wha. . . .? Why is Manish in “Manish” quotes over at Slate? I mean, I could see “Ennis” or “Fofatlal,” but don’t you always go by Manish? Maybe “Michael” should click on the author-icon and learn a little about the real life persona of “Vij.”
–“Saheli”
It is kind of odd that CalMN is not in quotes while Manish is 🙂
wholy shit ! that track is unbelivably bad (end credit music) – the beats are off & the random desi vocals …lol …the brother must have been on acid
It’s off tempo on purpose.
mainstream journos vs. bloggers: the accuracy debate rages on.
That’s hilarious, Trixy, I didn’t even get that far in the sentence b/c the quotes threw me so much.
Though Slate is really only a couple of degrees removed from a blog itself.
I know this is a bit late, but my idle reading didn’t expect to stumble upon any praise for this dung-heap of a movie and I felt it necessary to interject. Jay, where are these positive reviews? The highest I’ve seen is 2/5.
It is shit. Utter, utter, shit. LXG was made a ham-fisted disgrace by woeful editing and I was prepared to give some benefit of some doubt to the director, but this merely serves to demonstrate he is an ignoramus of the highest order. I spent a good half hour listing the myriad shortcomings of this movie, but I’ll try to highlight the most glaring.
There is no ‘feel’ for London, moody interiors of offices and flimsy sets makes the setting entirely irrelevant. The moronically hackneyed ‘public’ shots of slack-jawed goggleboxers and smokey pubs are laughable. More fanboy tripe rushed onto celluloid in the hope the pre-existing fanbase will be so awed they won’t criticise it. Natalie Portman’s accent veers from Eliza Doolittle to Liz Hurley to Hansie Cronje and her acting lacks any sort of convincing edge.
McTeigue seems to think that shadows = comic book and leaves all other style out to dry. Style is good. Style can rescue a flimsy plot at the box office. The sole thing I can praise about this movie are the wisps of light trail that follow V’s knives as they are launched. Which brings me to my next point – the fights. They were awful. I actually blagged IMAX tickets (I wanted to like it) and I was still immensely underwhelmed by the action, it had no flow or choreography.
The plot has glaring holes, Guy Fawkes seems to have been lofted to some freedom fighter role, none of the characters make any sense and the future is remarkably like the present. We know it to be several years after 2015, but the police still drive Rover 75s. It’s 2006 now and they stopped using them years ago! Sloppy attempts at politics abound, with confused references to Abu Ghraib and avian ‘flu. The board outside the AMC hall listed it as Suspense/Thriller/Action/Romance/Drama/Horror/Blockbuster and this reflects its confusion perfectly. It doesn’t know what sort of film it’s supposed to be. The dialogue (courtesy of the Wachowskis) was also pretty poor, with more “bollocks” than I’ve heard all year.
OK there was another good thing about the film, shouting ENGLAND PREVAILS in a packed American movie theatre is quite fun.
Once again with the Wachowskis and specifically James McTeigue, it’s less, not Moore.
Instead see: Nineteen Eighty-Four(starring one of the wasted leads here, John Hurt) or Equilibrium.
The original story was published between 82-85, so that might explain why they’re attached to certain anachronistic emblems of england.
Well maybe Ennis. The fact we’re no longer in a Thatcherite Britain counts against the film’s success – it’s what made Alan Moore’s work so popular, indeed many consider him one of the greatest ever comic writers. But they’ve tried to update this, which I think was a justified idea. It’s just they haven’t updated it anywhere near coherently nor uniformly. Putting a comic/graphic novel on screen requires more imagination than this. Why do you think Moore has been desperately trying to get his name completely dissociated from this film? He wants nothing to do with it whatsoever.
Bong Breaker aka Sutler: Have mercy. Kush aka Guy Fwakes: Not today.
Hope your travels are going OK. I would give V for Vendatta 2.5/5. They were bits and pieces I enjoyed – It lacked deeper connection.
Bong,
I meant Guy Fawkes.
I also meant “V for Vendetta”. I must be having a Bengali moment for another typo..Vendatta
Ven Datta, perhaps some Dutch-Bengali hybrid. A bit like Bong Braeker (sic).
If the Police did the soundtrack: Vendatta Mondata.
Came here looking for the name of the Ethan Stoller song over the end credits, BKAB. I’m surprised that
Just saw the movie today, went in with low expectations based on the last two Matrix movies. I loved it, it is a pompous movie, Allen Moore is a pompous writer. Pretentious? Perhaps. The explosions were silly, the bullet time knives were a groaner, but it was a wonderful Sunday matinee. Hugo Weaving can do no wrong. Natalie Portman made me wonder how Lucas could have made her look so wooden in Star Wars. Also got a kick out of Stephen Fry, noted UK intellectual/media personality, doing Benny Hill schtick.
I wondered the same thing about the homosexual themes. Are they so heavy in Allen Moore’s original?
If you want politics, go see “Good Night and Good Luck” and “Syriana”. V for Vendetta is lush, corny comic book fun with a hint of depth.
I actually loved the movie!
“W” is “Wait for it to come out on DVD”
“T” is for “The whole replacing ‘V’ with other letters in order to bash the film is getting quite tiresome.”
V was a brilliant movie for myself, even hardcore comic buffs that I know thought it was well played out, there were some changes, and parts left out, but overall it was fantastic, oh and BATMAN has no “SUPER POWERS” either yet he is well loved and admired…you don’t need super powers to be great. If you did end up seeing V’s face it would of taken the mystery away, the mask was his face, as was said in the movie. Overall It had some good scenes my fav being the banter of V alliteration, benny hill & the destruction of landmarks to 1812. One thing that keeps grating me though is the use of the word “bollocks” all the time..lol like its the only word us Brits use. All in all the best way is to see the movie yourself, opinions are our own which we are all entitled to.
Where are the desi libertarians?
V for Vendetta needs some cultural insight and an appreciation of English history that is sorely lacking in many of the negative commentaries made here. The film is an outstanding piece of work that has much to say about our current paranoid political milieu in a way that is satirical and very poignant. The utilisation of a character like Guy Fawkes in a modern setting is fascinating and makes compelling viewing. Regarding Fawkes the historical figure, he was a freedom fighter struggling against the political and religious oppression of his day. Namely, the oppression by the protestant south of the mainly catholic north of England, a major contributing factor to the north / south divide which still exists to this day. Guy Fawkes was a Yorkshireman which is just another way of saying he was a brilliant bloke! I am sure he would be well pleased with his portrayal in this marvellous film and book by the Wachowski brothers. Pauli
well its one of the greatest movies ever made…classics of our time…many things from the real graphic novel are not included in the movie but that happens with all the novel based movies…so its nuthing new…however the plot is very hard to comprehend if u havnt read the novel first…and the movie has got real good reviews all over the world..and those who say that V has no superpowers they gotta reconsider their credibility to post in here…as V for Vendetta is all about vengeance…he is a freedom fighter cum terrorist who is changing the world thru getting back at those ppl who ruined him and millions of other ppl…Love this movie..Love V.