An anthem...

Rating: 10/10 (3 August 2006)

So many films that start as novels fail in their transition to the big screenso, it is always a pleasure to see one that succeeds. "V for Vendetta" is even more surprising because it started life not as a typical novel, but as a "graphic novel," an extended comic book of sorts. While that might imply a trite or childish story, the protagonist, V, is no super empowered, comic-book hero, but a real man, with real limitations, and real passionspassions that would make Thomas Paine proud. While the original story had overtones of a socialist response to Thatcher's England, the film version is as libertarian, and as American, in passion, as one could imagine. Given the current dismal politic of America, it is perhaps astonishing, and encouraging, that the film appeared at all. Still, stranger things have happened: At the height of Mussolini's fascism, Ayn Rand's pro-individualist novel, "We, The Living," was produced and distributed in Italy. In the same surprising fashion, "V for Vendetta" has managed to appear in America, much to my personal delight. I have just finished watching the film for the third time, and I cannot imagine a more entertaining celluloid manifesto on the importance of individualism and human liberty.