keninabu!

V for Vendetta

Just watched it last night. A pretty good film, made by the Wachowski brothers who brought you The Matrix, before they spoiled it with the sequels.

I won't spoil the movie for you, I'll just make some comments about what I think.

The Wachowski Brothers are famous advocates of Landmark Forum, which is a company that runs these courses that essentially brainwash you. Apparently they got their inspiration from this programme to make The Matrix. Whether the brainwashing is a good or bad thing really depends on you. Some of their techniques do seem to work, and do brainwash you in the same way that you take your laundry to the dry-cleaners. But it also creates a certain unnerving advocacy, as the filmmaker of "Supersize Me" recently commented about in his blog .

An ex-friend of mine went for the programme, and informed me that it involved a number of desensitization techniques. The aim is to be free from all negative emotions.

There is a scene in "V for Vendetta" in which Natalie Portman's character is tortured, and repeatedly subjected to interrogation and torture, until she had lost her fear of death. After that she was released, because she was "free", liberated from fear. That scene reminded me a lot about the other details that my ex-friend told me about, which I won't go into here, in large part because I cannot confirm the veracity directly, but more because of the principle behind it: the more exposed you are to your emotions such as fear and anger, maybe the better you are at overcoming them after you can recognize them for what they are.

It is fruit for thought. It is definitely something that I continually expose myself to, because I cannot feel content with just being happy alone.

posted by keninabu @ 12:59 AM