Freedom! Forever! and on film

OK, now I'm starting to be convinced. Wally Conger found some reviews of an early screening of the V for Vendetta film that make it sound very much like the relentlessly brutal screed against the totalitarian state has been interpreted onto the screen intact - not just nearly intact, but, as one reviewer wrote, "They made the comic book."

This would be huge for those of us who believe our society has willingly gone along with a transition to an Orwellian dystopia, where we trust the state to protect us from mostly-mythical dangers in exchange for chains and cages. V for Vendetta the graphic novel, and now perhaps the film, holds a mirror up and forces us to see the chains whose existence we cheerfully deny.

The theme is aptly summed up in the slogan posted on the film's Web site: "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." Boiled down to its barest essentials, the Bill of Rights has the same theme.

This promising news comes within days of the Dec. 20 arrival of the DVD of Serenity, another film that offers up a vision of a benevolent-appearing central government that serves up horrors while attempting to force "a better world" on its unwilling and unwitting victims. The tone of Joss Whedon's masterpiece is much lighter than the Alan Moore graphic novel, but the adventure of Malcolm Reynolds has much in common thematically: Using the brute force of the state to impose a social vision on the citizenry can only end in disaster for individual freedom.

The stories offer different solutions. For all of the violence in the film, Reynolds achieves victory in the end through nonviolent means - trusting that a fully informed public will do the right thing. If V for Vendetta truly makes it onto the screen intact, the solution will be a bit messier.

We can argue for a very long time which approach is more effective for the cause of freedom. But the fact that both films exist is cause for celebration and hope.