Oct 042006
 
three reels

It’s 2027, and the last baby was born over eighteen years ago.  The infertility of the human race has caused most societies to crumble, with violent anarchy the rule.  Britain survives under a fascist government that cruelly carries out its no-immigration policy.  Theo (Clive Owen), an apathetic, alcoholic, office worker, is brought into the fray by his ex-girlfriend/wife/lover, Julian (Julianne Moore), the leader of pro-immigrant terrorists.  She’s found a girl (Claire-Hope Ashitey) who has become pregnant, and wants Theo’s help in getting her out of the country to the secretive Human Project.

Bleak, brutal, and compelling, Children of Men is a parable for the last six years, told with bullets, bombs, and a constant feeling of dread.  Somehow, it manages to be fun to watch, but it is more impressive than enjoyable.

While Michael Caine, supplying the few light moments as a hippy living secretly in the woods, and Julianne Moore, as a cold, but perhaps too idealistic “freedom fighter,” have been getting a good deal of press, the film belongs to Clive Owen and Claire-Hope Ashitey, and mainly to Owen.  It is a journey, physically and emotionally with one individual, and we’re along for the hellish ride.  Owen is the man for the part.  Be it depression, pain, shock, loss, or the discovery of hope, Owen captures every moment, making Theo one of the most compelling figures in recent cinema.

The plot is old hat in apocalyptic B-science fiction, coming uncomfortably close to that of the less-than-stellar American Cyborg: Steel Warrior.  A man protects the world’s only fertile woman on a trek to reach a mysterious boat which will take her to safety.  The ending is even the same.  But it isn’t about the story, but the execution.  Children of Men presents a believable near-future (believable under the circumstances), with thousands lamenting the death of the worlds youngest person (he was eighteen), black-clad military police on every corner, and immigrants kept in cages.  Director Alfonso Cuarón (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) displays this dystopian world with gritty realism.  The climactic urban warfare is the most stunning piece of filmmaking since Blackhawk Down.  The audience around me jumped, winced, and sighed through the last fifteen minutes.

The themes are as powerful as the imagery.  While the story is taking place twenty-one years in the future, the situations it is referring to are taking place now: The plight of immigrants and the simplistic way it is perceived, the loss of civil rights connected to the fear of terrorism, how people who just want to survive suffer for other people’s ideals.  There’s a lot of Iraq in the film, as well as current U.S. and British political thought.

While I could get lost in the picture, I was pulled out repeatedly by the lack of information I was given.  The sheer number of unanswered questions is distracting.  Why was no one fertile for 18 years?  Why have no artificial techniques been developed?  Why do all the immigrants want to get into the U.K. when it is such a horrible, fascist state that is so cruel to immigrants?  Why doesn’t Theo go to the press?  Why does he need five thousand pounds?  Does the Human Project exist, and if so, what will they do?  Is Kee a fluke or will lots of women become pregnant?  I welcome a film that, for a change, sticks with one character, letting us know only what he knows.  But I’d have liked him to know a bit more.

But I have a bigger problem with Children of Men.  It assumes it would be a good thing for the human race to survive.  I suppose that’s a reasonable thing to expect an audience to accept, but I didn’t.  In general, I like it when a film supports even its most popular positions, but lack of support isn’t the issue here.  Rather Children of Men makes a forceful argument for the elimination of mankind.  It paints a dismal picture of the species, and even when individuals aren’t sludge, it demonstrates over and over that people cannot interact with each other in larger numbers than two or three without dire consequences.  If I’m supposed to care about the fight to save humanity, I need to be given some, small reason, to think its a good idea for us not to leave it all to the hamsters.  I did care about Theo and Kee, but I didn’t want them to succeed, just escape.  Children of Men will one day be an honored film, seen by all young hamsters so that they will feel no sorrow for those that have gone before them.

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