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Storyline
The futuristic tale unfolds in a Great Britain thats a fascist state. A freedom fighter known as V (Weaving) uses terrorist tactics to fight the oppressive society. He rescues a young woman (Portman) from the secret police, and she becomes his unlikely ally. |
Backdrops
The Director
James McTeigue
James McTeigue (born 29 December 1967) is an Australian film director. He has been an assistant director on many films, including No Escape (1994), the Matrix trilogy (1999–2003) and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002), and made his directorial debut in the 2006 film V for Vendetta.
Born on Sydney's North Shore, he grew up in Collaroy Plateau, a suburb on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, Australia. McTeigue attended Marist Brothers North Sydney then Cromer High School, in Cromer, a northern beach suburb of Sydney. He completed tertiary study in film at Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga Campus.
Description above from the Wikipedia article James McTeigue, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
User Reviews
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Early (Less Rough) Review: Vive la V
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From December 5, 2006:
My first reaction to this film is, "Hey, I'm still thinking about it." That's a very good sign.
My second reaction to this film is, "God, Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving are such great actors!" Consider: Hugo. He portrayed this wonderfully complex man without ever once showing his face, displaying a raw, powerful array of emotions all whilst hiding behind a facade of plastic. And never once did I think, "Mr. Anderson" or "Frodo Baggins." The man has such an unmistakable voice, yet his cadences this time around were mesmerizing.
Natalie. She can act. We knew that. She can also affect a decent British accent. I was most impressed during her kidnapping/"black bagging" scene. Her fear, hopelessness, and panic were so palpable, I almost couldn't breathe with her.
My third reaction to this film is belated after reading Kami's blog: it does smack a bit of the Phantom of the Opera. A disfigured man with a mask bestows his affections and obsession upon a girl. In POTO, the connection is music. In this film, the connection is the quest to fight oppression from tyrannical or autocratic forms of government and to uphold the principles of truth and freedom.
Which brings to me to my fourth reaction: the Wachowski brothers are again raging against the machine. Only this time, the machines are humans set in the not-so-far-away future, and the commentary is more about giving into fear than succumbing to our technological advances. It's about not letting the politics of fear corrupt the politics of truth in favor of assigning too much power to one man or group of men. It's about not repeating the mistakes of the past, since the chance...
View full review
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reviewed by Pippin2010 (Filmaster.com) on the 26th of January 2010
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The political sentiments of this film, although I'm mostly sympathetic with them, get beaten into you with a sledgehammer. And I hate any scene with someone in the pouring rain, shot from above, eyes closed, face upturned in rapture, arms outstretched, being reborn. It's horribly clichéd and it's just damned lazy. However, where the Wachowskis and McTeigue succeed is telling a compelling and watchable story and exploring the nature of symbols and icons and their role in politicizing an ideal