Children of Men

dir: Alphonso Cuaron
[img_assist|nid=875|title=It's pretty grim in this brave infertile world|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=450|height=210]
Imagine a world where a baby hasn’t been born in 18 years. Imagine a world where the entire human race is infertile. Imagine how people would act towards each other with humanity’s extinction being just around the corner.

Based on the novel by PD James, Children of Men is really a thriller. It sounds like a science fiction film with a weighty premise, and it is, but it is still essentially a film where the hero, played well by Clive Owen, spends a lot of time running away from all the dangers that exist in the world around him.

The film is masterfully put together. Even if there are a few elements I thought were wretched (especially in an idiotic scene where two characters play around with a CGI ping pong ball, or a wasted scene at the Ministry of Art), the film consistently sticks to its vision and does it in a remarkable fashion.

Apart from the immediacy and feeling of being there in the action, the use of handheld camera really works in the film’s favour (instead of causing headaches in the audience, as it sometimes can). There are also numerous long, unedited takes which would have required an amazing amount of coordination. This is virtuoso film making, but it doesn’t call attention to itself. Sequences towards the end of the film are particularly amazing in the way they show our heroes trying to survive a military and paramilitary attack on a refugee camp.

It is a fast paced, harrowing descent into a hell on earth, one which crystallises so many contemporary elements from the daily international news that you feel like you’re looking at something happening right now.

Clive Owen is good in this, in the same way he is good in everything he does. In his role, he needs to convey two things: intensity and a desperate stubborn intention to get through no matter how serious the situation is, and it looks very serious indeed.

Theo (Owen) is contacted by his ex-wife Julian (Julianne Moore), who he hasn’t seen for many years since the breakdown of their marriage resulting from the loss of their child. He has a government job and access to the right people, and he’s one of the only people she can trust, since she is something of a terrorist working with an organisation called the Fishes.

This isn't an action role in the sense that the term is usually applied: this isn't a film about a guy who triumphs over the forces of evil by killing them with guns or ruthless martial arts skills. Theo just wants to survive and to protect a young woman called Kee (Claire Hope-Ashitey), who carries a miracle inside her.

Terrorism continues unabated, with the usual suspects being responsible, but the government (in this case the British government, since the flick is set in Britain) also decides that it is the right time to start terrorising its own population. The general malaise that has overcome humanity since it became infertile means the government tries to maintain its control over what would have to be a rapidly dwindling population. It does this with forced evacuations and Guantanamo-style refugee incarceration. All 'foreigners' are branded enemies of the state, and are subject to summary imprisonment or execution, depending on how generous the guards are feeling.

Of the various factions squabbling over humanity's crumbs, a group calling themselves the Fishes seem like the good guys, but they have an agenda of their own which doesn't seem to go along with our Hero and the girl he is protecting.

It's impossible to watch the film without thinking, not of the world in 19 years time, but of the world right now, and what the film's ultimate point is. It's not that babies, in and of themselves, are the saviours of humanity.

The world itself, and the nightmare going on around them, is not as important as the gift he is protecting. It's hardly a subtle metaphor for how important children are to our sense of hope for a better tomorrow, but it’s effective. Whitney Houston would be proud. Teach them well and let them lead the way.

Its point is that we need hope. Without hope in the future, without consideration for the world we will leave to our children, we really will be doomed.

8 times I was blown away by how this was put together out of 10

“As the sound of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in. Very odd, what happens in a world without children's voices.” – Children of Men