The Secret of Children of Men
I managed to see the film Children of Men. Though I had to go eighty miles to find a showing of the flick in Madison.
This film has received top recommendations from all critics alike and they’re saying it’s a thought provoking tour de force through the lowest ebb of human kind that has run out of hope.
Sounds like my kind of movie.
I'm still ticked about the limited release of the movie.
But it’s not the feel-good award winning stuff people might expect to come out on celluloid. It’s not a likeable film at all. A lot of people die in the film that represents a grainy, blighted future that holds a barren landscape for us in the near future. Set in 2027, the human race has become sterile due to some freak biological glitch. Women are no longer able have babies. The dead end of humanity is getting closer.
Terrorism isn’t too far away in a cluttered society closed off by barriers. People have become isolated, drawing more inwards into their own personal loneliness. People are always lording authority over others, pinning their superiority onto lesser, weaker folks. It seems that humanity hasn’t changed that much.
But there’s a hope. A black woman carries the first baby born in eighteen years. She is put into the custody and care of Clive Owens who sees to it that she is safely delivered to the boundaries outside of the British Isles. But she is also a curse. The baby holds the future of the human race. And it’s a dangerous secret if it gets out.
The film is set up like Dante’s Inferno as it goes from one level of destitution to the next, falling deeper into the poverty-stricken alleys and streets that inhabit England. And much of the conditions worsen as you go along, starting from the Prime Minister’s glorified room in the top of the majestic building to the lowly, narrow corridors of the bombarded building holding crowded residents towards the end of the film.
The sceneries are ugly, protesting against the fallen of humanity. You see desolation everywhere, the sadness pouring out through the grayness of skies, always polluted, as the cities look like they were ground zero, cluttered with ruins, a pointless travesty defiled by more homeless people.
Perhaps the baby will become a generation of new people with a brighter future. It will be a glorified specimen which will bring humanity back to a full circle. Interestingly enough, the baby is African. The continent where mankind supposedly grew up in a cradle of civilization.
Owens gives a remarkably low-key performance in the film who helps the mother and her baby get out of the country. Michael Caine is terrific as the happy-go-lucky hippie who is a friend of Owens. But the story of survival is the thread of the film—there’s a quiet gesture that perhaps mankind is hanging on a thread. And it already is.
Children of Men isn’t Hollywood material. I doubt that the film is going to do very well at the box-office. But it gets respectable credit from critics who like the film for what it is. A philosophical discussion on the rights of man. Yes, it is a science fiction film despite what some critics may say. The film poses questions. It asks the unaskable.
There’s one powerful scene with the mother holding her baby, like the Virgin Mary cradling Jesus, carrying her through the rubble of the streets as military soldiers look onward. The whine of the baby silences everything. There’s no movement except for the mother and her baby being led into a different part of the city.
For those who want to go find an action-oriented flick filled with mindless explosions, this isn’t the movie for you. Far from it. But if you’re looking for something that wants to explore a world that could potentially be ours, Children of Men delivers. It will shock. It will surprise. Most of all, the film will make you think long afterwards the last scene of the stranded boat fills the screen with a shred of hope.
This film has received top recommendations from all critics alike and they’re saying it’s a thought provoking tour de force through the lowest ebb of human kind that has run out of hope.
Sounds like my kind of movie.
I'm still ticked about the limited release of the movie.
But it’s not the feel-good award winning stuff people might expect to come out on celluloid. It’s not a likeable film at all. A lot of people die in the film that represents a grainy, blighted future that holds a barren landscape for us in the near future. Set in 2027, the human race has become sterile due to some freak biological glitch. Women are no longer able have babies. The dead end of humanity is getting closer.
Terrorism isn’t too far away in a cluttered society closed off by barriers. People have become isolated, drawing more inwards into their own personal loneliness. People are always lording authority over others, pinning their superiority onto lesser, weaker folks. It seems that humanity hasn’t changed that much.
But there’s a hope. A black woman carries the first baby born in eighteen years. She is put into the custody and care of Clive Owens who sees to it that she is safely delivered to the boundaries outside of the British Isles. But she is also a curse. The baby holds the future of the human race. And it’s a dangerous secret if it gets out.
The film is set up like Dante’s Inferno as it goes from one level of destitution to the next, falling deeper into the poverty-stricken alleys and streets that inhabit England. And much of the conditions worsen as you go along, starting from the Prime Minister’s glorified room in the top of the majestic building to the lowly, narrow corridors of the bombarded building holding crowded residents towards the end of the film.
The sceneries are ugly, protesting against the fallen of humanity. You see desolation everywhere, the sadness pouring out through the grayness of skies, always polluted, as the cities look like they were ground zero, cluttered with ruins, a pointless travesty defiled by more homeless people.
Perhaps the baby will become a generation of new people with a brighter future. It will be a glorified specimen which will bring humanity back to a full circle. Interestingly enough, the baby is African. The continent where mankind supposedly grew up in a cradle of civilization.
Owens gives a remarkably low-key performance in the film who helps the mother and her baby get out of the country. Michael Caine is terrific as the happy-go-lucky hippie who is a friend of Owens. But the story of survival is the thread of the film—there’s a quiet gesture that perhaps mankind is hanging on a thread. And it already is.
Children of Men isn’t Hollywood material. I doubt that the film is going to do very well at the box-office. But it gets respectable credit from critics who like the film for what it is. A philosophical discussion on the rights of man. Yes, it is a science fiction film despite what some critics may say. The film poses questions. It asks the unaskable.
There’s one powerful scene with the mother holding her baby, like the Virgin Mary cradling Jesus, carrying her through the rubble of the streets as military soldiers look onward. The whine of the baby silences everything. There’s no movement except for the mother and her baby being led into a different part of the city.
For those who want to go find an action-oriented flick filled with mindless explosions, this isn’t the movie for you. Far from it. But if you’re looking for something that wants to explore a world that could potentially be ours, Children of Men delivers. It will shock. It will surprise. Most of all, the film will make you think long afterwards the last scene of the stranded boat fills the screen with a shred of hope.
posted by K.M. Paters at 1:04 PM
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