Children of Men

Children of Men
Cuaron, 2006



“Why have people stopped being able to make babies?” This is the question that is constantly repeated by everyone in the late coming 2006 film, Children of Men. It’s a very scary idea. But interestingly enough it’s not this question that makes the film so fascinating. The real question the movie poses is, “what happens if people stopped being able to make babies?”, as in what happens to society, civilization and even right down to the common individual. It is this question that Children of Men uses as a principle of the story and ultimately it achieved fantastic results, building a scary and terrifyingly believable world of the future where all hope is lost. It also should be mentioned that Children of Men is one of the best looking films of the year, if not the best looking film of the year.

While Children of Men could have easily skewed into the iffy narrative world of being a conspiracy about sterilization by the government or be a about Clive Owen going on a mission to find a cure, it luckily stays very basic, and as a result very grim. Children cannot be conceived anymore, for whatever reason – it does not matter. What matters is the what happens to the world when civilization realizes it only has one generation left, and then, nothing. In this respect, Children of Men is an excellent, probing look at humanity and it’s wonderful to see how different people react to the situation. Some try to profit as much as they can, others simple stay to themselves to wallow in pity, and still others seem prone to violent revolt. Of course, the story progresses when it turns out there is a young lady who is pregnant, and she has to be taken to the “human project”, though it is never explains exactly how this project works. It falls under Clive Owen’s character in this film to take the young woman to the human project, and the journey to get there is both beautiful and darkly grim, even sadistic.

In terms of what Children of Men does as a film, all I can say is it does an incredible job at getting to you. There are some scenes that literally have you holding your breath in suspense, such as the gripping ‘stalled car escape’, and other scenes, such as the soon to be famous final tracking shot, which will simply have you with your jaw open, and if not you’ll be hiding under a pillow because the scene is so downright intense, raw, and harrowing. Ultimately I would say realistic is the key here. The environments, the sets, the cityscapes, the war zones, everything feels dreadfully realistic. The atmosphere is so thick because you really feel like this could be a real place and a real crisis. Certain scenes even recall images from the holocaust and the purging of the Ghettos. It’s all very horrifying. And yet there are some excellent relaxed, easy going scenes (often involving a certain Michael Caine as a pot smokin’ hippy!). But overall, Children of Men sets up an utterly realistic world in which it lives and because of this whenever there is an emotional or tense scene, it’s really emotional or tense.

Ah, but how does it look? Bloody fantastic is all I have to say to describe the visuals in Children of Men. The cinematography is simply deserving of awards. From simple shots following a character around to more complex scenes such as the escape or the final (breathtaking, ethereal ) tracking shot, everything is just so sublimely put together. The wide camera feels perfectly free to roam around, pan, track, do whatever it wants, but it never draws to much attention to itself. In fact, the way the film is shot is so seamless that I didn’t even realize I was watching a massive, complicated tracking shot near the end until it was almost half way though! Bottom line is Children of Men looks simply amazing; it doesn’t matter what scene you look at, it’s guaranteed to look amazing.

Overall the plot is simple but very absorbing and almost something you can study. The film is effective at whatever it tries to do, whether it be a live or die escape in a car that won’t start or just a quick stop for coffee, Children of Men never failed to deliver. Visually, of course, Children of Men takes the cake looking superb and first rate – sublime, really. Children of Men may have been a gamble, but the payoff was huge. Children of Men is a scary look deep into the eyes of a humanity in its death throes, while at the same time maintaining a glimmer of hope and of course looking classy to top it all off. with disappointments and disgraces, it’s refreshing to have such a trascending film come our way.