I watched V for Vendetta and watched closely to see how this
movie relates to fear. It is one of my favorite movies ever, but I had not seen
it in quite some time. To my delight, it was on Netflix! At first, I started
with the two topics of people fearing their government and fear of the other.
The first topic—fear of the government—changed as I watched the movie. By the
end I realized it was the government that became afraid of their people and
that is why tyranny was ruling with such force (causing the people to fear
their government in the beginning). Fear of the other came about when tyranny
ruled and the film focused on Valarie—a homosexual woman that got “black bagged”
and experimented on (homosexuals, activists, etc. are all “black bagged” (taken
by the government)). Í also picked up on the importance of coincidences, ideas,
and love.
In examining the dynamic of fear between the people and the
government, I picked up on some things in the first few scenes of the movie. As
Evey is out past curfew, there are a few “fingermen” (law enforcement officers…
I wonder the significance of the term “fingermen”) that she is terrified of. V, the vigilante, comes to her rescue. V is a man
in a Guy Fawkes mask and carries many knives (I feel that the use of knives
against guns was significant. I took it as him wanting to regain the freedom of
older days by overcoming the fingermen without guns); however, she is less
scared of this man (who, I should mention, is raving like a lunatic) than of
her law enforcement officers. She trusts him enough to follow him through the
city and listen to what he has to say. The letter “V” is extremely significant
in this movie. V, a name he gives himself because he was in room V. (5) when he
was being experimented on. The importance of this letter comes from all of the
words that start with it. V mentions many of them as he raves, some of them
including “victory”, “vigilance”, “vaccine”, “vengeance”, and “victims”—just to
name a few. These words are all pivotal to the dynamic of the movie because the
alliteration of the hard syllable catches peoples’ attention, as well as—of
course—the words’ meanings.
I caught characters saying “there are no coincidences” 3
times throughout the movie. While watching, there were some scenes that
depicted this: as V infiltrates where Evey works (he did not know she worked
there), there is a moment of split screen where Evey hits the elevator button
just as V hits the fire alarm. By the end of the scene, she “coincidentally” is
the one who saves him. Another “coincidence” I picked up from close watching
was the fire that broke out at the experiment site where V was being held.
Valarie, the woman I mentioned earlier, had written him a letter saying “I hope
you escape this place.” It was also a “coincidence” that Evey’s family was
killed by the government for being activists.
I’m going to focus on Valarie for a second, as well as the
importance of words/ideas/truth and love. The opening scene is strikingly
beautiful: “…an idea does not feel pain, but you cannot kiss an idea, an idea
cannot feel love…” This sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Another symbol
for love I found was that V leaves red roses with his victims after he kills
them. V says multiples times that “words will always retain their power”, where
the government monitors the people’s free speech. He also says, at the end, “fear
is the optimal tool of this government.” The government was afraid of their
people, so they made the people afraid of their government. Valarie’s scenes
depict her life and struggles of being a lesbian—a significant scene was when
she comes out to her family, with her girlfriend holding her hand, and she says
“I had only told them the truth.” Her parents then kick her out; I feel this is
an example of people not wanting to or unable to face the truth. As V puts Evey
what he went through, scenes match up with Valarie’s scenes while she is at the
experiment site. This is important because it shows the parallel of their
feelings and experiences.
One last thing I noticed was that the governments “catchphrase”
was “unity through faith”, and the government’s symbol were double crosses.
Evey had mentioned that “God is in the rain” and when she steps outside for the
first time since going through what V did, it is storming and she outstretches her
arms just like V did when he escaped through the fire. The water/fire duo is
important because they cancel each other out and represent duality. I wonder if
this duality has something to do with the double crosses as the government’s symbol.
