CHILDREN OF MEN: chance vs. faith

site | trailer | Watch-A-Thon movie #1Saw CHILDREN OF MEN this afternoon with Dan. Damn thoughtful and entertaining movie. Gripping, smart, non-stop. My first screening was a week ago with my sister. This time, though, it counts as movie #1 for the Watch-A-Thon. =)

The premise is tricky at face value—two decades into the future, humanity has lost the ability to reproduce—but the film follows through on it in the most satisfying ways, telling a gripping and suspenseful story on top of that. The writers (the film is an adaptation of a book by P.D. James, which I shall definitely be looking for) and creators of the film do some very opinionated, but sadly, not so outlandish, or even unfamiliar, extrapolation and create a consistent, gritty, and decidedly bleak view of the world twenty years from now.

The last generations of humanity are walking a planet that's been devastated by war, terrorism, disease, and pollution. One last haven of civilization survives on the island nation of Britain, and its government will go to great lengths to keep it under control and purely British.

Clive Owen is amazing as Theo Faron, a just-getting-along ex-activist turned cog working in civil service. On the way to work one day he's snatched from the street by members of the resistance movement called the Fish. While the government plays up the threat of dangerous immigrants, interring them in camps and segregated ghettos, the Fish seek to open the country to citizenship for all who seek it.

The Fish are now led by Theo's fugitive ex-wife, Julian. She's had her people bring Theo into the fold to help grant safe passage out of the country to a very special 'fugee, a miraculously expectant young mother, Kee. Her offspring may be the salvation of humanity, but Julian is certain that, being an illegal, Kee is not safe in Britain. She charges Theo with the job of getting her to the sanctuary of the rumored "Human Project," an international group of scientists dedicated to solving the mystery of humanity's infertility.

Michael Caine is a great aged neo-hippie and mentor. Really, at every level, the cast is solid. Clive leads them all, though. His intensity and man-of-few-words expression is, as always, impressive. As Theo, he's an excellent unlikely and jaded hero. A good man, a believer, who's lost his faith.

Y'know, Clive Owen should've played John Constantine...

In a better movie. =)

It's difficult to describe the amazing directed and choreographed chaos of the film. The movie's scope, pace, and mood is crazy dynamic, making hairpin turns that take you from a mundane slice of future life to desperate survival in an urban battle zone. Although I'm sure there were many opportunities for cuts that could be smoothed over in post production, there are *many* apparently long uninterrupted shots throughout the movie. The camerawork is a brilliant and sinister assistant to the storytelling. I had trouble remembering to pay attention to it, almost immediately drawn back into the movie whenever I thought of it, but it seems like 90 percent of the camera work is hand-held, embedded documentary style. It's never disorienting, and it's very versatile, intimately following some flirty dialogue one moment, then zipping around in panic at an almost zombie-like attack by bandits.

See this film!

From here on, I'm gonna ramble about more of the film's goodness, but will probably drop ***SPOILER*** bombs. So go out and watch the movie, then come back and compare notes. =)

A great touch. There's a scene with Theo following Julian down some stairs from a pedestrian overpass. On the midway landing is a junked and rusted out baby carriage.

Battersea figures interestingly in this story as the location for the "Ark of the Arts," an initiative dedicated to preserving great works of art (as determined by Theo's cousin, at least). I "know" Battersea in my head now from some recent DOCTOR WHO episodes, and the prominent power station or factory located there and made famous on the cover of Pink Floyd's album ANIMALS. Y'know, with the big pig? Having that factory in the background was wonderfully absurd. The first time I saw it, most of the audience picked up on it. The second time, not so much. Go figure.

Hell of an opening. In the first scene of the film we're introduced to Theo when he stops at a coffee shop on the way into work. On the news is a report about the death of "Baby Diego," the youngest person alive. Everyone else in the establishment is entranced, teary-eyed. Theo pushes thru, gets his coffee, and leaves. A minute or so later, the cafe is demolished in an explosion. A woman stumbles out of the wreckage, holding her own severed arm. Cut to title: CHILDREN OF MEN. Hell of an opening.

I'm definitely all over whatever director Alfonso Cuaron does next.

After the explosion, Theo complains several times about how his ears won't stop ringing. We get to hear some of that ringing for several minutes after the explosion ourselves. It drops out somewhere, but I couldn't tell when. Pretty damn clever. I think it comes back at least once more after a gunshot as well. I want to say it's during the attack on their car, but it may have been part of the ghetto assault.

No room at the inn. Religion? Faith? Virgin birth? Heh. Kee makes a joke out of it. But as the movie unfolded the first time I saw it, I thought to myself how interesting it would have been to release this in time for Christmas, to have it play in rooms next door to THE NATIVITY, y'know? Religion and particular religious movements are mentioned and glimpsed in the film's London of 2027, influenced by the imminent doomsday of the human race and all. Organized religion and the associated beliefs don't play a role in the motivation of the main players in this story, though. Theo, weary and disillusioned, repeatedly declares that even before humans stopped having children they'd royally f'd up the world. But he returns to his activist true-believer ways when he discovers that Kee is pregnant. He chooses to believe in the existence of the rumored Human Project, and risks his own life and those of his friends to deliver Kee to them. In fact, he loses his life without ever seeing a sign of the project.

Frack. I'm doing a poor job of explaining this non-religious belief. It felt pretty powerful to me and I'm not doing it justice. I could imagine fanning the spark of this story by attempting to imagine how a humble birth could be made miraculous in the modern age, and what could a rational man have faith in in a world apparently abandoned by and without god.

Or something. Frack. I really can't wrap the words around the ideas...

Does anyone know of any religious or mythical significance to being barefoot/without shoes? I seem to remember something from the Old Testament about approaching the burning bush while barefoot...? Theo ends up traveling a good part of the very dangerous journey without a decent pair of shoes. Also, what up with the friend-to-the-animals-ness? Saint Francis? Some CATCHER IN THE RYE specialness? For me, there was definitely something in the way animals seemed to take to Theo. Maybe it was a reflection of his change in attitude, motivation, belief? Attack dogs startle him early in the film when he's sleepwalking through his life. The guard dogs at the Ark of the Arts seem wary of him when he arrives seeking travel papers for Kee. But once he's acknowledged his righteous activist past with Julian, the dogs at the resistance safe house like him, and the little kitten inside makes him her scratching post...

Syd, the immigration cop, shows up in the camp after Kee has her girl. Apparently in disguise, he's working shemagh head gear to blend in. Wise Man icon? Anyone? Eh, not Important to the story, really. And not even conspicuous given the context. But from the movie theater looking in, the visual was striking to me. He's more wise@ss than wise man, anyhow.

The music. The British rock selections are all just the right flavor for the scenes they're in. I think some were originals and others must have been created as future-covers, y'know? I'm gonna hafta think about picking it up. I don't know my Brit rock so well, but I do like good music from films that I dig.

Original instrumental music didn't really call out to me except for some appropriate choral pieces and one bit that was almost a kind of fanfare, or blast. A warning, almost, to pay attention to what was coming, just when Theo, Kee, and Marika (their gypsy contact in the camp) were making their way through a tunnel and into the open street while trying to get to a boat. The music was almost out of place given the rest of the score, cliche and over the top, like an announcment of some serious $hit on the horizon. But in that way, it was absolutely accurate and fitting.

Graffiti. The last one to die, please turn out the light!

Logical, disturbing extrapolation. Quietus. A euthanasia drug or system is advertised throughout the film. "You decide when" is the tag line, I think.

Jasper points out how the government provides anti-depressants and suicide drugs in their rations, but ganja is still illegal.

You don't have to explain everything. The cause of loss of human fertility is never explicitly given. Neither is the reason for Kee's pregnancy (although the virgin birth joke is a nice moment). In the telling of this story, it's not important. I wonder what kind of theories were put forth in the novel. I really will hafta look for that.

Also, movies can get away with letting you build the, or a, correct explanation, by showing you a key piece of information, a symptom, a consequence, an absence, even, for just a few seconds. Smokestacks everywhere. Detention centers. Smoking pyres of livestock. You can choose the reasoning but on the whole it adds up to the last generation on a royally f'd up earth. Pollution and disease likely unchecked. Limited resources hoarded by the nation, protected from outsiders, the populace conditioned and controlled by fear.

The future is now, eh?

Some great dialogue. There's a great litte exchange between Michael Caine's Jasper and the matron Miriam, about chance versus faith, and how everything that happens in life is a result of a struggle between the two. Jasper explains how Theo and Julian met and had a child in terms of chance and faith, and how the child was taken from them. Miriam seems to conclude, "Everything happens for a reason." And Jasper replies with a sort of trailing-off, "I'm not saying that..."

Not everything happens for a reason.

Keep on keepin on~