Children of Men
Alfonso Cuarón took the world of Harry Potter (Prisoner of Azkaban) and rendered it in three dimensions: dark, textured, and always moving. Even in that fantasy world, everything felt grounded, plausible. In Children of Men, a film set in the near future of 2027, Cuaron again grounds the story and images in recognizably 2006 imagery. By doing so, he makes the depressing and terrifying world of this movie seem not only plausible, but inevitable. (So start recycling already, people!)
From this emotional place, in a world devoid of new births for 18 years, P.D. James’ novel takes us on a sort of anti-hero’s quest for hope for the future. The preview gives it away so I will feel free to tell you: A woman has become pregnant when no one believed that would ever happen again, after all this time and despair and resignation. Where suicide kits are sold without a prescription, no children exist anywhere, just a million pets, and the most basic social rights and services have been obliterated by chaos, a baby is coming. The political, emotional, and biological impact of this will be immense. Only on such a canvas as Cuaron paints here can such a concept feel so immediate.
I said it was an anti-hero’s quest. As Cuaron describes him, Theo (Clive Owen) is passive, resigned, hopeless, depressed. Only his friendship with Jasper (Michael Caine) gives him any reason to get up in the morning (that, or he’s so unemotional that he couldn’t be bothered to end his own life). Ex-love Julianne Moore dumps the responsibility for the pregnant girl on his shoulders, and suddenly this hopeless man is in the middle of a complex political game and is also in charge of preserving the only hope humanity has.
So yeah, it’s high-concept and interesting. Another reason that people like myself are praising this movie to the rafters is the simple glory of Cuaron’s filmmaking. He has long shots, lasting basically from tip to tip of a can of film, with impeccable pacing, balance, flow, and execution. An in-can shot begins as an uneventful but tense drive and, without cutting, explodes into multiplanar chaos, with action in and outside the car and unceasing urgency and tension. It’s not frenetic MTV jackassery – the dynamics come solely from the actors and action. In a scene that feels right out of downtown Baghdad, this unrelenting immediacy is intense as all get out.
With these long takes, all the actors and background talent and crew need to be meticulously choreographed. Pacing and flubs can’t be saved by editing. It’s not Russian Ark (96 minute continuous shot), but I’ll tell you, it makes an already emotionally arresting scene more engaging – and it sparks ever more admiration for the director.
I have to confess that at times I was so flabbergasted by what I was seeing, I forgot to listen to the story. So, I will see it again – I know it is my weakness. This movie would have been a on a lot more Best of 2006 lists had they even opened it on 12/29/06 – it barely qualified for this year’s awards consideration with a paltry and frustrating NY/LA release after months of titillating previews. Maybe it’s not so much a holiday movie, but it’s definitely a very good one. Children of men is a dire work of all-too-possible speculative fiction, and its beauty as a filmic work instills nearly as much hope for mankind as its fugitive mother-to-be. Go see it.
MPAA Rating R-strong violence, language, drug use, brief nudity
Release date 12/25/06
Time in minutes 114
Director Alfonso Cuarón
Studio Universal Pictures
