V for Vendetta isn’t a great film but in some ways it is intriguing. There’s quite a lot of themes in the movie V for Vendetta. One of the major themes of the movie is the mysterious identity of V himself. Who is this masked person? I haven’t read the graphic novel but the Wachowski brothers do an extraordinary job pully together a number of allusions.
1. Guy Fawkes. Of course the mask is first foremost that of Guy Fawkes the Catholic Revolutionary who tried to blow up the house of parliament in 1605. But the mask takes on other personas as well.
2. Villain. This is interesting the person who ties the woman to the tracks is the classic vaudeville scene.
3. Edmond Dantes. Which is really a code name for a whole host of sword wielding masked men. All these role into one. The weapon of choice is important here. Not guns but knives and at one point we see V practicing with a sword. Like Zorro, v slashes a v or pints a v on stuff? Like the Phantom of the Opera, Zorro and5. Edmond Dantes. The film makes mention of Edmond Dantes the hero of the Count of Monte Cristo. The plot of the book of a man wrongly imprisoned who escapes to inact vengeance on those who imprisoned him.
4. Faust’s Devil. V is held in Larkhill cell number “V”. A favorite Latin phrase of V’s is said to be from “Faust” but in fact was a motto of the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley: “Vi Veri Vniversum Vivus Vici” (“By the power of truth, I, a living man, have conquered the universe”.
6. Jesus Christ. “Jesus Christ, he’s in the house. I new you’d come for me.”
7. Valerie. V says he’s both Villian and Victim. The victim in a Vadville theater is a woman. While the mask has a mustache and beard the exaggerate features are also androgynous. V is androgynous much like the Lana formerly Larry Wachowski brother who co-adapted the graphic novel for screen. But V is also androgynous… a fact we will come back to later. or another woman. While V is played by Hugo Weaving and has a male voice the entire film it is not unheard of to have another voice play an unseen person to throw of suspecting viewers. The first time Valerie becomes an obvious choice is after Evey emerges from her cell and sees V standing in the room with long hair. The story told by vallerie has her and her lover sharing violet roses together and later we see V showing Evey a shrine to Valliere surrounded by these flowers. Once Evey leaves V throws away the mask and weeps in front the mirror like a woman.
