Children of Men

Children of Men

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***this review discusses parts of the plot and may act as a spoiler! If you haven’t yet viewed the film and don’t want spoilers, then perhaps you should return to this review after viewing it. Also, the links to lead to videos of an R-Rated film. Sincerely, Rammfan518***

‘Children of Men’ takes place in 2027, and the world has gone to shit. The streets of London are a mess, literally. The world is grey, the streets are lined with trash, technology has stopped, and the technology we do have has not progressed very far. This movie starts out with a bang. Clive Owen is just chillin’ in the coffee shop, then he stops to put some sugar in it a ways down the sidewalk, then *bang!* The coffee shop blows up and screaming ensues until a harsh ringing sound lays over the title screen: a black background with white text saying “Children of Men.” Awesome opening.

Although the story was good, it was something else that made this movie so amazing. What really made me go “wow” was the directing. Alfonso Caurón does and excellent job with this one. This has to be one of the best directed movies I have ever seen. There are two shots that come to mind. One of the scenes takes place in a car. Now, this shot is about 4 minutes long, and in that four minutes, they are stopped by a flaming car, their windows are bashed in, a motorcyclist shoots the person in the front seat, they are chased by police (whom they kill) and then speed off. All in one unbroken shot! It is freakin’ amazing! See the scene here.

Another one of these shots last for about six or so minutes and takes place in a refugee camp during a battle. They have a six minute, unbroken shot of a battle! Oh my goodness it is so amazing. I was truly blown away by the camera work. I loved every second of it. See ths amazing six minutes of cinema here!

The acting is something to be amazed by as well. I was most impressed by
Chiwetel Ejiofor’s performance. Great acting jobs by Clive Owen, Michael Caine, Julianne Moore, and all.
If you like dystopian stories, and/or if you’re fascinated with excellent camerawork, see this film. Plus, seeing Michael Cane as an old pothead was awesome.

Recommendations: (500) Days Of Summer (Marc Webb, 2009)

Last updated: 2010-03-12 16:37:05 by rammfan518

Children of Men

By far and without a doubt, the best movie of the decade in every way, shape and form. The story is very layered and deep, with extreme undertones that mirror modern society in so many ways that to get into it here would be a terrible idea and a very long one at that! It is made in a way that you are on an adventure with Theo and not once are you ever away from this character. Even when he is not the focus of a scene, he is just around the corner and his presence is very known to the viewer and so important to the story. There is much to be said about what the miracle baby represents and the impact and effect on everyone involved, whether it be positive, or negative, the baby represents something greater than flesh and blood and it brings out the worst in people, or the most heroic.

There are a few scenes in this film that are beyond astounding and the one in the car when the protagonists are attacked is so mind-blowing, but it is the end that really does it for me. The last 15-20 minutes ofChildren of Men is the most powerful, chaotic, frightening, hopeful, and beautiful 15-20 minutes in cinema history. Period. I so want to go on about this movie, but I will save my ramblings for a better time. The fact is, Children of Men is my favorite movie of all time, for the time being and unless something else better comes along, then it will remain that way.

 

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Recommendations: High Plains Drifter , Dalkomhan insaeng , Dial M for Murder

Last updated: 2010-03-23 22:11:36 by Mattsuzaka

Children of Men (2006)

The second most shocking snubbed film of the decade (so angry!! fucking critics don’t know shit!) during the awards season, CHILDREN OF MEN was by far the very best film of 2006; untouchable. After taking HARRY POTTER to the heavens, Alfonso Cuaron gave us one of the most brilliant (dystopian) science fiction films ever, right alongside BLADE RUNNER. Julianne Moore–can’t even talk about her character, I’m still in shock, Clive Owen acting the hell out of his part by way of feelings, expressions, and how the hard-edged of his character starts to crack. The directing, oh man those long, single shots are just amazing in ways you cannot, I repeat, cannot experience by going to Pandora.  The depiction of the world, to me, one of the most close to a probability of the future.  Specially because for a futuristic film, it didn’t bombard us with gadgets; there were some, but nothing fully unrealistic.  Humans may think themselves ahead of the curve, but look back at the past films of this genre? Are we close to any of all that technology? No. We are not running, we are crawling and CHILDREN OF MEN seems to have gotten that right in terms of futuristic vision.  I could continued on, breaking this movie down and making a case for it, but no need. Just watch it if you haven’t and let it sink into you.

Children of Men: Goodbye Homo Inferior

The near future is a stillborn world of violence and decay, Homo Inferior’s legacy fear in a handful of dust. Through the abattoirs of arid wastelands and across infertile political boundaries, the human race nears its end with a crashing roar: but hope is reborn in a tiny form, a savior’s gentle repose in filth and ruin, where a mother’s love conquers all.

Director Alfonso Cuarón’s film is a prescient prophecy concerning our future where religion and geocentric politics, racism and intolerance are the basis for laws and insipid beliefs, and the threat of annihilation comes from this crumbling moral foundation. This science fiction dystopian narrative evokes George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Philip K. Dick, their visions of Police States governed by the use of brutal injustice and extolling drug use for population control. Cuarón wastes no time on exposition and utilizes a mundane action film structure, but elevates the story to allegorical proportions.

The attention to detail is exceptional as every digital billboard and television commercial, barking background advertisement and newspaper, concentration camp and dilapidated flat, buses loaded with pallid refugees whose vacant eyes reflect a last generation, compounds the narrative and makes this future age seem not only alive and believable…but very probable. Primary colors are suppressed, creating a hazy grim world where the presence of children are dead echoes, like a coloring book of corpses utilizing only grey and black Crayons. The nuanced sound also permeates this poisoned atmosphere, from the choking streets of London to the staccato gunfire of revolution; the disparate music seems to evoke some lost legacy of freedom and peace, to remind us of a world that once existed…or should have.

Alfonso Cuarón’s technical brilliance is evident in two wonderful tracking shots: the first uses a 360-degree shot inside Theo’s car during a violent ambush, and the other as he crawls through the detritus and rocket’s red glare to bring Kee and the infant back towards the land of the living. These battle scenes are starkly realistic, rising to the brilliance of Spielberg’s Omaha Beach sequence in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Finally in the vaporous mystery of a whispering sea, once again Dylan brings hope for another Tomorrow. Shanti Shanti Shanti. Final Grade: (A)

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Recommendations: The Birds, Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960), Funny Games

All reviews copyright Korova, Ltd. Visit Alex at his Home Theatre Blog, http://korovatheatrepresents.blogspot.com/

Last updated: 2010-02-25 07:36:49 by AlexDelarge

Children of Men

What do you do when the world comes undone? Movies about the Apocalypse offer a variety of responses. You could be a hero, like Mad Max, or Kevin Costner (before The Postman). You could cringe in fear, like a disposable character, huddle with the masses and wait while The Hero decides what to do. Or you could be the reluctant hero, like Clive Owen in Children of Men, who gets to cringe in fear and to act heroic. Your only problem with option C: what if you come along too late?

The world is ending in Children of Men, and I’ve no faith that Owen puts things right by the movie’s end. The sense of dread that pervades the movie is soul-crushing, like looking at a downed passenger aircraft: even if there are one or two survivors, it’s the wreckage, and the dead, who lodge in the mind. The year is 2027. No new babies have been born since 2009. On the day the action opens, as a final irony, the youngest person on the planet has been murdered. Britain, stoic and plausibly bloody-minded to the last, appears to be the only nation on earth not in ruin.

Clive Owen plays an office drone who was once a political activist. He watches news of the youngest man in the world’s murder while buying coffee. He looks blank. Moments later (in the movie’s opening scene) the café he’s just left is bombed. There is silence. Then there is screaming. A woman emerges from the café carrying her severed arm. The title card intercedes before we can know what Owen does next.

What we are given to understand is that this bombing and Owen’s passivity are constants in Children of Men’s universe. Owen has chosen the path of least resistance in the face of imminent annihilation: like any Brit worth his salt, he has become a cynic. His only friend (that we are aware of) is Michael Caine, an aging hippie who lives in a forest. Caine is our only hint that Owen wasn’t always an empty vessel because Caine is so full of life; he couldn’t possibly have befriended the balance sheet-persona that present-day Owen exudes. And he didn’t. Owen has reasons for his reticence. He is a grieving parent and a divorcee. Julianne Moore was once his wife.

Moore is now a wanted terrorist. She heads a group called the Fishes, who seek to overthrow the government. The Fishes have come into possession of a pregnant girl. They want Owen to arrange safe passage for this girl to the British coast, where a group called the Human Project waits for her. Owen’s kidnap by the Fishes (and his agreement to help them) sets Children of Men in motion. He becomes a hero because he has access to the right paperwork. He is not heroic by disposition, or by choice.

The best part of Children of Men is also the part that’s hardest to watch: the way the world ends around Clive Owen. Every scene it’s like we climb one rung farther down into hell. Even in London, the city looks like the Los Angeles of Blade Runner. The farther Owen travels from home, the more things fall apart around him. By the end, in a refugee camp that looks (intentionally) like Baghdad, Owen is so rattled and bludgeoned he looks like it’s only his suit holding him together.  His cynicism can’t shield him.

Director Alfonso Cuarón could have made Children of Men as a sci-fi movie, or as a horror flick, but it’s neither. Clive Owen doesn’t pick up a gun and become an action hero. Nor is he eaten by zombies (this isn’t28 Days Later). Children of Men might be set in 2027, but it draws its terror from 2007 (that’s why the refugee camp looks like Baghdad). Cuarón draws many parallels with Iraq (and U.S. misadventure) in this movie, but the movie doesn’t need a political dimension to work. It does well enough by dread. What stays with you – and why you watch, with morbid fascination – is the movie’s deathly character. What was is the heart of this film.