i finally watched "v for vendetta" (thoughts on britain and dystopiae)

i held out for years, on principle. i'm not sure why, given that i was never the biggest fan of the original comics (they're lesser alan moore works, and i think he's acknowledged as much, in the past). i guess i just didn't want to see another moore creation tarnished.

anyway, it was fine, i guess. horrible ending. really, ending credits? you had to play "street fighting man," even though you nixed one of the best lines of the book, which is V entering the bishop's room and quoting "sympathy for the devil"? and of course, natalie portman's accent was awful and john hurt sort of phoned it in. blah blah blah, you can read such criticism elsewhere, and elsewhen.


my question was this: why do british dystopias fascinate me so much? i'd say "fascinate us so much," but i'm wary of generalizing. no american dystopia has gripped me in the way that "children of men" or "nineteen eighty four" have. or "brazil" and "blade runner," for that matter—both directed by brits (terry gilliam and ridley scott, respectively).

i've spent all of seven days in the united kingdom, and yet it is the british dystopiae that most fascinate me. i'm tempted to say that the fascination stems from the fact that britain is already like a parallel universe to me—very recognizable, but significantly different. but i don't think that's the whole story. i even love pink floyd's "the wall," with its weeping protagonist begging the audience, "does anybody here rembember vera lynn?"

maybe i'm with slavoj žižek on this one: britain is the only major world power without a written constitution. therefore, the law and freedom are both based on collective memory. in a fallen world, when memory is lost, britain is lost. as an entity, it no longer really exists. it is the purest form of dystopia, because it is the negation of the society as it once was. no more memory, so no more britain. well, the britain that remains is but a rump state, no matter its geographic span. it has quite literally lost its ideological soul. in the US, there will always be documents of the law, even if someone tries to shred them. so perhaps britain is the more pure ground for dystopia.

anyway, i also have to wonder: if conditions continue to improve in iraq, will dystopiae be as necessary as they were when "children of men" came out? because back then, i swear to god—there was nothing more powerful than that film. it retains nearly all of that power, but there's a slight chip away at the armor, now that it doesn't seem like the whole world will become like iraq circa late 2006.

the horrible man inside me doesn't want the dystopias to go away.