Children of Men
Children of Men is a gripping – if depressing – movie. For those of you who don’t know about it, the story is set in a dystopian future (the year 2027, to be exact) where the human race has been infertile for the past 18 years, and terrorist run amok. Our hero, Theo, is tasked to spirit a pregnant teenage girl out of the England – the only country in the world which has not descended into complete anarchy - and hand her over to “The Human Project”, a benevolent group of scientists dedicated to reversing infertility and preserving humanity. [It is not the best movie to watch when expecting a child].
My main complaint with the movie is the heavy handed (and obviously left-leaning) politics. The movie sort of beats you over the head with it. For example -here be spoilers- one scene recreates the infamous “hooded man” picture from the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal, and there is an entire sub-plot regarding illegal immigrants. Many key elements of the plot are taken from the “war on terror” and the Israel/Palestinian conflict. In fact, the last one-third of the movie takes place in a Gaza/West Bank-esque refugee camp. A slight redeeming quality is that both sides (the government and the “terrorists”) are portrayed as people blinded by fanaticism and ideology and neither have any redeeming qualities.
Politics aside, the movie is very good. Clive Owen does a superb job as Theo – a disillusioned ex-activist who finds new purpose and meaning in life with the birth of the newborn, and he is surrounded by a capable cast of supporting characters. Director Alfonso Cuarón, who made his name in Hollywood with Y tu mamá también and is probably best known for directing Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, does some great cinematography work. [There is a section of the movie that is shot documentary style, with a hand-held camera that has blood spatters on its lens, and the climatic battle scene is filmed as one, long unbroken shot].
What I found interesting is that a similar thread is found in the Marvel Comics mini-series Earth X, published around 2000. In Earth X, a mutation causes the human race to become infertile (among other things) and the world descends into anarchy. The basic premise in both the film and comic is that without children, the world goes to hell in a handbasket.
sounds good. First account of the movie I’ve heard from someone I know.
For the opposite end of the spectrum, I suggest “Idiocracy” for the more likely course of events for the fall of civilization.
I think my post makes it sound like I didn’t like the movie. I did. I just thought the politics was heavy handed.