Sunday, January 7, 2007
Children of Men
There are movies you see, and then there are movies you experience. Children of Men falls into the latter category. Rarely have I been so gripped by a film. Intense is the best way I can describe this movie, which lives up entirely to the trailer that sent chills up the spines of more than a few people I know. The premise of the plot could be hammed up or made entirely unbelievable at the hands of any lesser director, but Alfonso Cuaron manages to make it not only believable, but scarily so. The fact that mankind cannot reproduce is but a part of the apocalyptic world the film captures; the elements that complete the frightening image are realistic extensions of things that already exist today: totalitarian governments, xenophobia, a society dependent on prescription solutions, and pollution. Seeing this movie, most people would probably agree with me that it makes its dark interpretation of the future not only plausible, but probable even. That the camera does not budge for many gruesome scenes, only wobbling a bit as if it were in the unsteady arms of a documentarian, adds to the grit and power of the experience. Imagine then when the viewer is thrust in the midst of frankly terrifying action scenes, following a character in an unbroken shot for several minutes. Several of these occur throughout the film, and they are the crowning moments of Children of Men. The film's climax amidst a war zone leaves one breathless, to say the least. As the movie ended, many people in the theatre remained sitting, commenting that they needed a moment just to take-in what they had seen, to recover from it. I was certainly among these people. It's the kind of film that makes you want a cigarette when it's all over, even if you don't smoke. Highly recommended, just know what you are getting into.
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I saw this movie on a double-date, and surprisingly, it was the perfect choice over "The Good Shepherd" and "Blood Diamond." It's one of the most human movies I have seen since The Descent, or even some Kaufman films- it's all part of this new modern taste in writing. It takes the appeal that memoir had to us in the early years of the decade, and applies it to fiction. More importantly, to the now-overflogged dystopia genre that has recently resurfaced in such flops as Ultraviolet and Aeon Flux, following on the coattails of the Matrix and such.
Except you don't feel like Children of Men is science fiction, because the speculative parts are just given to you. They are not explained. The end of female fertility is shown to us as if it were a sort of political event- as if it were a 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, and the characters assume that we understand. But the characters themselves are still really living in our world. And that is how Children of Men really disturbs us- this doesn't feel like a movie set, or a documentary- it does the film thing the way it is supposed to do.
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