Children of Men

Children of Men (2006)
I love a good concept film. Jim Carrey endowed with God's powers for a week? I'm intrigued. A serial killer who adopts the seven deadly sins as his MO? I'm there. The world has devolved into chaos because women have stopped having children? Just tell me where to sign up.

The last of those three is, of course, the premise behind Children of Men, a strikingly perceptive film that sometimes looks like it takes place in the aftermath of a massive nuclear war. It actually takes place in London in 2027. Fragments of a somewhat futuristic society (dazzling monitors and adverts punctuate almost every scene) contrast with the debris and violence. Without the investment in the future that children represent, our more destructive tendencies are going untamed, and society is beginning to collapse.

Clive Owen plays Theo Faron, a former activist who apparently couldn't beat the government bureaucracy, and decided to join them instead. On the outside, Theo is aloof, unaffected, and sarcastic. But on the inside he, like the rest of the species, is waiting for something to awaken his hope and idealism. And one day, he finds it: a pregnant woman named Kee (played by the appropriately named Claire-Hope Ashitey). He joins up with a group of people keen on overthrowing the establishment, and they begin an effort to deliver Kee to a group of scientists called The Human Project in hopes of finding a "cure" for mankind's infertility.

Amazingly, director Alfonso Cuarón has made a science fiction film about the downfall of society that doesn't include stale warnings of nuclear winter or artificial intelligence. The real danger, we are told, is within, a point which is emphasized through a surprising betrayal.

The film is surely a cautionary tale, but generally has the good sense to let us decide what it is we're being cautioned against. The infertility depicted in the film could represent any number of things. It could be a consequence of pollution, or punishment for a cavalier attitude towards the sanctity of life, or simply the natural result of humanity taking its status and abilities for granted. We're not given an explicit moral, though several clumsy attempts are made to shoehorn the issue of immigration into the proceedings. These are presumably emphasized in an attempt to make the film seem more relevant, but the themes here are so broad and timeless that zeroing in on this one issue steals some of the film's considerable elegance.

Most of the performances are sublime, from Owen's cynical Theo, to Michael Caine's ease and humor. Ashitey is passable as the potential savior of all humanity, but seems like a bit of a caricature at times, perhaps because most of the people around her are deathly serious. The film goes to great lengths, however, to relieve the considerable tension (which is almost unbearable at times) with random moments of levity, every one of which rings true, no matter how irreverant.

Surprisingly absent from the tale is the issue of religion. Most of the major characters spend the duration of the film trying to protect Kee from those who would senselessly harm her. The historical irony of us once again trying to protect a savior from the very people needing to be saved is apparently lost on them.

These flaws notwithstanding, Children of Men is a borderline masterpiece. It is technically brilliant and occasionally funny, but consistently poignant. For all the pessimism on the surface, the film is optimistic at its core. It depicts a world not without hope, but in which hope is dormant, waiting for a spark to ignite it again.

I think your review of the film, Yoda, is a well-written, thoughtful one - I just happen not to agree with it.

I too like a good concept film. Children of Men is definitely a concept film; however, imo, not a good one. The concept itself is good and original, but once it has been fully revealed half way through, there is not much else of interest in the movie.

I'm intrigued by a certain line of inquiry in your review, Yoda. You speculate that one of the possible reasons for the global infertility could be 'punishment for a cavalier attitude towards the sanctity of life.' Surely, this is your own personal reading. Like you noted, religious inferences are absent from the film - aside from a bit of genuflecting near the end. While you say that the issue of religion is 'surprisingly abesent,' I actually thought the avoidance of religion and any kind of moral explanation or trajectory was one of the movie's strong points.

There was lots of potential in this movie. It's always more of a disappointment to watch a film that starts off strong and fails to deliver than one that can be easily dismissed from the beginning.

I'd rate it a 5.5/10

As for the absence of religion or "any kind of moral explanation"--let me make an important distinction: I'm not necessarily criticizing the film for lacking an explanation, moral or otherwise. I'm criticizing it for creating some alternate universe where religion seems not to even exist. For a film that seems to be trying awfully hard to seem realistic, that's a pretty big deal, because any world where this sort of change doesn't spark a lot of religious introspection simply isn't our world.

Not gonna touch on the lack of religious themes because I really don't care about that. Seems beside the point and the topic wouldn't really come up very naturally, given the conversations presented throughout the film. My curiosity is piqued but I don't think the exclusion is with considerable detriment to the film.

What I want to talk about is:

Cuaron only produced Richard Nixon.

I understand what you're saying.

I guess to care enough about characters to extrapolate their fates beyond the conclusion of a movie requires caring enough about the movie that they're part of. Perhaps that's where we part ways on this one.

Here is an interesting analysis and take on the film; Slavoj Zizek

hxxp://xxx.youtube.com/watch?v=pbgrwNP_gYE

Of course worthy to mention the long shots taken, also an interesting point is to compare this to Pan's Labyrinth and the subject of Hope sourounded by darkness by the director in two of the films and the out comes.