If you go into Children of Men expecting
to see the movie advertised, you'll be in for a thrilling
surprise. If instead, you see it while looking forward to
a dystopian war film of epic and haunting proportions, you'll
love every minute of it. Alfonso Cuarón has made his
most powerful work to date in this visually stunning motion
picture.
In 2027, mankind rests on the edge of extinction.
No new child has been born for over eighteen years, and war
and disease threaten those lucky enough to have been born
before infertility struck the species. In isolationist England,
former activist Theo (Clive Owen) agrees to help the radical
militia smuggle a miraculously pregnant woman out of the country
to potentially end mankind's sterility. While this may seem
like the premise of a science fiction film, Children of
Men is anything but. It's as science fiction as Orwell's
1984, which I would argue is not really science fiction,
but an extreme prediction of the future. In this film, no
flying cars or supercomputers make the world any different
than the one we live in today. Only the chaos and terror separate
the future from our present reality.
If not science fiction, in what genre does Children
of Men belong? I felt from the onset the same unease
and adrenaline of such war classics as Saving Private
Ryan and Apocalypse Now, and the similarities
to the war genre only get stronger as the movie progresses.
When Theo escorts mother-to-be Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey) through
a refugee camp under attack by the martial-law-enforcing military,
it's hard to think of anything but the real war the characters
are involved in.
One of the strengths of the film is that it
creates a futuristic dystopia which is as timely today as
Orwell's was in 1948, and Huxley's Brave New World
was in 1932. Issues of immigration and the worldwide push
toward totalitarianism to fight terror don't put the future
of Children of Men too far out of the realm of possibility.
Anyone whose paying any attention at all to the world around
us will see that, infertility aside (I pray), we're headed
in the same direction.
While performances are strong from the entire
cast, especially Owen, Julianne Moore, and Michael Caine,
the real star of Children is director of photography
Emmanuel Lubezki, who creates the world, the mood and the
ultimate terror that comes from the film. He utilized the
gray haze of England, and combined it with extremely dark
exposures, to give the film a gloomy and daunting depth. Some
of the most powerful scenes, such as the warzone shot at the
climax of the film, was all handheld, and one continuous take,
for minutes on end. During the shot, a spray of blood smears
the lens, but the shot continues, adding a disturbing level
of realism. I can't think of a single shot that was so mesmerizing
since the Copacabana entrance in Goodfellas. I have
yet to see another film from 2006 that is more deserving of
the ASC and Academy Awards for cinematography. We'll see if
the powers that be agree.
I've always been a sucker for post-apocalyptic
films, but this goes above and beyond the usual fare. Children
of Men drops the "post" and places you right
in the middle of the long, drawn-out end of civilization. It's
not the movie I expected from the trailer and write-ups I'd
read before heading to the theater. No, it was much, much better.
