The trouble with V: compelling and affecting in its depiction of life under totalitarianism, V for Vendetta ultimately endorses the lawlessness on which totalitarianism depends.

The construction of a totalitarian system invariably involves an intense campaign of demolition. All impediments to the power of the emancipated state, both public and private, must be destroyed.

The intent is to deprive the individual subject of any refuge from the power of the state, which--in Lenin's famous formulation--can then exercise "power without limit, resting directly on force." This process inevitably involves deception, since the objective is not merely to compel subjects to obey the state, but to induce them to surrender jurisdiction over their minds and souls as well. Through propaganda designed to manipulate fear, hatred, and other potent base emotions, the totalitarian state and its controlling oligarchy seek to enlist the subjects as collaborators in their own enslavement and psychological reconstruction.

Celluloid Dystopia

George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Ayn Rand, and other gifted writers have created fictional dystopias that illustrate totalitarian methods at work. Many film critiques and essays of a libertarian bent have embraced the new film V for Vendetta, adapted from a 1989 graphic novel (that is, a comic book with unusual literary heft) by British writer Alan Moore, as a worthy entry in that anti-totalitarian canon.

The adapted screenplay by Andy and Larry Wachowski, creators of the Matrix films, is smart and well-crafted. Director James McTeigue coaxed remarkable performances from his stars--Natalie Portman as Evey, and Hugo Weaving as the titular hero/anti-hero "V," an enigmatic terrorist whose never-seen face is hidden behind a static mask representing Guy Fawkes, the terrorist who led an abortive plot to blow up the British Parliament in 1605.

The film's setting is England in 2019, years after a quasi-fascist party led by Chancellor Sutler (John Hurt) has seized power and engrafted a garrison state onto the country's traditional institutions. For Britons, life goes on much as before: they can go to work, shop, attend church, down a pint at the local pub, and--of course--watch television. But the state's influence permeates all of their activities. The church has been made an appendage of the ruling Party. The media "interlink"--particularly the official television network--is a conduit of state propaganda, with every "news" story and entertainment program designed to exalt the Party and its leader.

Everywhere they go, subjects of Sutler's state are under surveillance, both human and electronic. Severe travel restrictions and curfews are in place, and pitilessly enforced. Electronic communications and even private conversations are scrutinized for hints of disloyalty or a lack of "faith" in the ruling Party and its Dear Leader. The Party's slogan is a belligerent summons to submission: "Strength through Unity--and Unity through Faith!"