Children of Men is a near future story set in 2027 with a simple premise; in 2009 humanity became infertile and now the youngest human is 18 years old. Faced with the end of humanity, how would we react? In this world, apparently badly. Most other cities we are told are in shambles and London is the only major city still "soldiering on". However, there's a big illegal immigrant problem and there are soldiers everywhere. And there are rebels who want the immigrants treated better, and they blow things up.
The star is Clive Owen, who does disspationate well. He's contacted by his ex-wife (Julianne Moore), who is working with the rebels. It turns out they have an illegal immigrant named Kee (get it?) who happens to be pregnant. He's enlisted to help transport her off shore to the utopian Human Project, which may or may not be real. They quickly end up in the middle of various urban battles. A great place for the only hope of the future of humanity to be wandering through.
The camera work in this film is amazing. Most shots are handheld and very long. Most of the battles are continuous 5 minute tracking shots. This has an effect of putting you in the action, right next to Owen. It's really nice to see a film without so many quick edits that you can't follow anything. The film has an immediacy about it that isn't common. It almost got to me not to think about some of the dumb things in the plot, but not quite.
Many of the reviews I've seen call this a cautionary tale. Perhaps, but if it's cautioning us against anything it's about the subtext. The visions of the imprisoned illegal immigrants were similar to those of imprisoned "enemy combatants". The urban battle scenes were reminiscent of Iraq. Even the rebels are as bad as the government. My problem was all of this was in the background of the plot, so it can't say much more than "this stuff is bad". Maybe there isn't much more about them to say.
I view this as kind of a shame, because the actual plot of the film could have been so interesting. Is your life worth living if civilization doesn't continue? Are children the only thing to live for? It certainly seems that way for Owen, who's life has no purpose until he begins his mission.
There are some quick gags about these things that are fun. Various religious cults have sprung up. The "Renouncers" flog themselves for the forgiveness of humanity, while the "Repenters" do something else equally stupid. Shades of the Life of Brian. There's a brilliant bit of absurdist humor involving a giant balloon in the shape of a farm animal, visible in the background floating over the city. There's various graffiti in the background, one was "Last one to die, please turn out the lights".
Again, the camera work in this film is amazing. As my mother would have said, it was just a middle. The end, while not as bad as it could have been, isn't really satisifying. Great filmmaking but not a great film.
4 comments:
Saw this tonight. Generally agree, but a couple of comments. First, not sure if you were aware of this but the giant floating pig was a Pink Floyd reference. It seems the guy with the nice apartment and the statue of David (nice gag, BTW) was a Pink Floyd fan and obtained himself the building from the cover of PF's "Animals" album, and understandably floated a pig above it to show off his attention to detail.
See http://www.analogartsensemble.net/blog/Pink_Floyd-Animals-Frontal.jpg
Second, your point about the movie being a middle and not dealing with a number of logic questions, like would life be worth living without kids. I actually liked how this movie didn't actually touch on them, yet made you think about them. Hil and I had a discussion about all the industries which would immediately fail: diapers, fisher Price, Nintendo. I thought that was very engaging. I also liked how the director showed just enough of "the rich guys who take advantage of the situation to get everything they want versus the inner city blight. It shows that in a situation like this, the term "fuckitall" can mean different things to different people.
Oh, and if you haven't yet, you should check out the DVD for the making of the baby birth scene as well as the car being chased by the mob. Incredible.
I didn't make the Pink Floyd connection at the time, but I did realize it and felt like a fool afterwards. It does work both ways.
I did like that it brought up discussion, but I wish it would have discussed more itself. How much more did the film add to such discussions vs. just the premise?
I've seen some stuff about the making of the chase scene, it really was impressive.
BTW I never got the reference behind "Kee".
Um...key.
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