Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Are moviegoers ready to tackle contemporary terrorism?
By JOE NEUMAIER
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Forget its R rating -- should "V for Vendetta" come with a Code Orange alert instead?
The movie, opening Friday, is a futuristic fable about a woman named Evey (Natalie Portman) living in a rigidly controlled London in the year 2020, when everyone is monitored by an oppressive government.
She falls in with a mysterious masked terrorist called V (Hugo Weaving) and becomes his willing prisoner in an underground lair. But after experiencing the kind of officially ordered torture that forced V to fight the system, she comes to embrace his view that the only way to rebel against evil is by doing evil -- like blowing up buildings.
Clearly, the movie is more "1984" than "Star Wars," with a dash of "A Clockwork Orange" and "Brazil" thrown in, as well as elements from such hot-button fantasies as "The Matrix," "Fight Club" and "Minority Report." Written and produced by "The Matrix's" Andy and Larry Wachowski, the film is based on a graphic novel first published in 1980. And unlike "Munich," it's a big-screen look at terrorism not of 30 years ago, but the kind Americans woke up to on Sept. 11, 2001.
"It's impossible to project what people's reactions will be to this film," says Portman, who shaved her head for the role (Evey's torture begins with her long hair being shorn). "Rather than wagging a finger, it asks, and raises questions -- when, if ever, is violence justified?"
More films
After "V" is April's "Flight 93" (about the hijacked airliner forced down in Pennsylvania) and in August, Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center," films that specifically dramatize the national tragedy. In development is "The Counter-Terrorist," based on the life of the former FBI agent who was head of security at the WTC when it fell. There's also the current Showtime drama "Sleeper Cell," which follows a federal agent infiltrating U.S.-based jihadists; and come June, bookstores will be stocked with John Updike's novel "Terrorist," about a would-be Islamic suicide bomber in New Jersey.
In a more innocent time, of course, movies like "The Siege" (1998), "Collateral Damage" and "The Sum of All Fears" (both made in 2001 but released in 2002) dealt with terrorism in action-adventure or "What if?" scenarios.
But now, less than five years after Sept. 11, are audiences ready for films to seriously tackle contemporary terrorism?
"'V for Vendetta' is definitely a provocative work that inspires strong reactions," says Portman. "One of the advantages of having it take place in an imaginative future world is that it can say many more things. And though the graphic novel was made 25 years ago, it's relevant today."
Last July, "V for Vendetta's" relevance was taken up a notch further when terrorist bombings in the London underground left 52 people dead. Suddenly, the story -- which has always involved its title character using an abandoned subway to blow up the Houses of Parliament -- became eerie. (Ironically, the movie was the first production approved to film around Parliament, for a scene in which oppressed citizens rise up against their government.)
Delayed release
Warner Bros., the film's distributor, delayed its release from last November to this spring, officially because of special effects work that needed to be done. "It felt right [to delay release]," says James McTeigue, the film's director, who was editing the movie in London at the time of the attack. Still, he adds, "you can't control if the real world echoes your art.
"The movie is about the individual's right to push back against fear. Filmmakers want to deal with what's going on in the world, and if that's the case, how do you not talk about terrorism?"
"V for Vendetta" also contains what could be seen as reflections of current Bush administration controversies, though the film's been in development for almost a decade. Yet its depiction of a leadership that uses fear as a tool and engages in wiretapping and surveillance may be seen as overtly political.
"I don't want to make propaganda -- I never would," says Portman, who has in recent years voiced support for Israel, among other causes. "I don't look for political works to do. But I was excited to make a big action movie that had actual substance to it. And 'V' has a theme that's been always true: people fighting against unjust regimes. Here it just happens in an imaginary world."