Vendetta asks questions we are finally ready for. **Mild spoiler**

Rating: 9/10 (22 August 2006)

The late seventies kicked off a time of innocent magic for American culture and beyond. For fifteen years or so the most successful movies touched the imagination and thrilled audiences with stories of adventure and triumph.
But for the last decade an appetite for more than other people's adventures has been growing. Now we feel something deeper and desire something that touches who we are. We now find fleeting the delight from joy rides and tickled imaginations. We now face real threats from dark corners we don't understand. We feel more powerless than ever to shape the world and create gardens for ourselves.
Throughout the modern age different people with differing world views had one thing in common. We thought we knew ourselves and we spoke into the world according to our separate visions even if powerful individuals resisted us.
But we are post that time. The voice of the people has grown mostly silent. Our modern age certainties no longer work. We are tormented even more by our longing for restored certainty than we are by worldly threats. We are being mentored to ask questions again. To find peace and direction we sometimes gravitate to the stirring questions of others.
A few films in recent years are helping us ask questions about what we fear most. The film V for Vendetta echoed this question so loudly that only fireworks and explosions could give a fully punctuated answer. How striking that audiences could sympathize with V's motives for blowing up government buildings after condemning without question the officially identified perpetrators of Oklahoma City and 911! Perhaps it's because V asked also of us what he asked of Evey and the oppressed people of London.
Whether they realize it or not the Wachowski Brothers are asking us a crucial question that transcends politics. We can feel the question under our skins. Anyone who views this film non defensively will react emotionally because it is saturated with symbols that call up feelings in us that have fallen asleep. Virtually every character, word, circumstance, event and object in this film typifies something in the story of humankind and its' most troubling of all questions, "Who are we?".
There is something in the message of this film that makes us doubt ourselves. It arouses a longing to see more clearly and live more freely. If the question lingers it begins to nag at us. Like Evey in the movie will we lash out at the question refusing any answer? Will we hate it and call it evil? Or will we finally collapse under the weight of its' well intended persistence? Will we yield breathless to the truth it begs us to accept? Will we set our hearts free from fear and claim who we really are? Can we find the courage to stand firm stubbornly demanding truth and respect from those who presume to control us with fear? Evey's surrender in the rain is one of the most powerful and beautiful portrayals of rebirth every created on film. Her running was over, her fear was gone. Don't we all long to have that?
People are filled with many fears. From the time we are born we collect them like bad habits. Fears are malignancies upon the human spirit. We fail to answer threats because we fear injury and death. We fail to make wise choices because we fear boredom. We fail to ask troubling questions because we fear rejection. We fail to fight injustice because we fear retribution. We fail to serve because we fear interruption of our comforts.
Who are we?
We could all be free but most of us prefer license. We prefer slavery because living without fear is costly. Freedom is only for "the vigilant and the virtuous". It must be stubbornly defended in the world as well as in our hearts. Slavish fear of bad governments is no more oppressive than our selfish addictions. The lies, guns and unjust laws of tyrants are only possible among a people already dominated by greed, control impulses, victim-hood, and prejudice.
Constant love is available but we still crave gratification like children. Love is costly because it calls us to forget ourselves and die if necessary to benefit others.
We can find truth if we're willing to pay the price but we kowtow to safety and convenience. Commitment to truth is painful because it more often humbles us than promotes our agenda. Truth is illusive and risky because it often comes in stages that can be mistaken for lies.
Who are we?
Our fears make us unwilling to accept who we really are. But we've always known it deep down. We are human beings. Our creative souls reject the insult that we are nothing more than accidents of time and chance. We know we were created for something more than slavery. We were created for a purposeto carry the likeness of One who knows no fear but weeps so bitterly for us that He chose death in order to destroy the power of fear and give us hope for a new world. We're drawn to the character V because a story like his is written in our DNA. We were designed to speak as V speaks. We were born to have no fear of death so nothing evil could make us slaves. But alas, those who use fear to gain power over our laws, our markets, and our appetites also use fear to close our eyes and our ears to any message that might set us free.
The fortress of deceit and fear has long been destroyed. The promise has been kept. The offer of freedom remains. But "there is no certainty, only opportunity."