‘Vendetta’ to be shown in Lunavision

Lunavision, an ongoing film series curated by Islander Peter Ray, will feature a free screening and post-film discussion of “V for Vendetta” on Thursday, July 24, at Café Luna. The 2005 action-thriller, directed by James McTeigue, stars Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry and John Hurt.

The film, adapted from a graphic novel by Allan Moore and David Lloyd, is set in London in the near-future and tells the story of V, a shadowy figure who is working to change the status quo while simultaneously carrying out a violent personal vendetta.

“V for Vendetta” will be the final installment of Lunavision’s three-film offering based on the theme “Summer Parables.”

Curator Ray, who calls the film one of his all-time favorites, suggested audiences “might even be tempted to draw parallels from ‘V’ to the current situation here in the United States.

There is the monomaniacal High Chancellor Adam Suttler, played brilliantly by John Hurt, who rules through fear and a right-wing Christian outlook, an endless war somewhere on the horizon, and a terrorist attack on the British homeland that is reported to be the work of foreigners but smacks of an inside job.”

Ray continued, “For those who made it through last month’s screening of ‘1984,’ there are many visual references and nods here that both act as an homage and as an echo of that film’s warnings. And while ‘1984’ left us with a rather large dose of despair, there is an element of hope expressed in ‘V.’ The film’s message — that things might turn out alright if we have one person with an array of quasi-super powers, an unexplained supply of resources and the total and unequivocal support of the people — is something to talk about.”

After the screening, audiences will have a chance to do just that, in a free-wheeling discussion of the film, and also learn more about Lunavision’s fall film line-up.

Ray said his fall program will include films based on the topics of food and food-related issues, as well as a look back at the Vietnam War era. The first two films in the fall series will be the 1974 Academy Award winning documentary “Hearts and Minds,” directed by Peter Davis, and a French documentary from director Marie-Monique Robin, “The World According to Monsanto.”

Beginning in September, Lunavision will take place at Café Luna on the second and fourth Thursdays of every month.

For more information about Lunavision, contact Ray at 567-4542 or pgr42@att.net.

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