Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men is the first science fiction masterpiece of the new century. It is a bleak meditation on violence and the human condition, and Cuaron's deft cinematic touch leaves the audience breathless in the film's wake.
A biology student once said, "The only thing unique to humans is their ability to create other humans." Children of Men deals with a world where even that is taken away. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic near future. This isn't a quick, flash-and-everyone's-dead apocalypse. This apocalypse leaves humanity to crawl towards the inevitable end in the aftermath of an inexplicable loss of human female fertility. The entire future of human existence is limited to the lifespan of a single person
Theodore Faron (Clive Owen) and Julian Taylor (Julianne Moore) had a child at one point, but lost him to the flu pandemic that took place soon after the loss of fertility. Now, Julian is the idealistic leader of a revolutionary group seeking to bring equality to immigrants in England. Theo has given up his activist roots in exchange for cynicism, alcoholism, and a successful business career. During the course of the film, he finds that his idealism isn't completely gone, it was just in hiding, waiting to be used again. He has this opportunity when Julian asks him to help with humanity's single most important mission: to escort the first pregnant woman in eighteen years out of London and to safety.
While this may sound like a run-of-the-mill story, Cuaron is able to bend and stretch the material to his liking. Combined with excellent dialogue and memorable characters, the story takes on a life of its own. The film's refusal to explore the issue of why women are infertile is also quite interesting. Though a couple of explanations are offered, they are never explored. This suggests that this issue is beside the point. The story is not about how people got to their current condition, but what they do to escape that condition. The cause is irrelevant.
Though extremely bleak, their is also a lot of humor in Children. This helps lighten the mood and prevents the film from being too depressing to bare. At the same time, this humor makes the parts of the film that are bleak that much more so by contrast. This not only makes the movie more enjoyable to watch, but makes the narrative more complex. It has emotional valleys and peaks, which keeps the audience from getting worn out on one side of the spectrum or the other.
Cuaron obviously trusted his cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, as the camera work is hardly touched by the editor's shears. Long takes are the norm, tracking the action and allowing every detail of every person or violent act to soak into the audience's psyche. Almost constant movement prevents the image from becoming dull. Though jerky, documentary-style cinematography is used, it isn't overdone to the point of cliche as it is in many movies that attempt to be "realistic." In Children, realism comes from the way this futuristic collapsed society is depicted. The majority of the population lives in squalor, while very few are able to do much better then that. Anger and hopelessness lead to violence becoming a part of everyday life. What makes this realistic is that, for many people, this is the way they live today, in 2007. For them, society has already collapsed.
When the credits roll, it is difficult to really leave Children of Men. It is, in a word, enthralling. The brutality of the cinematic text haunts the spectator, refusing to let go. The immediacy of each frame leaves a lasting impression. Finding a film that is capable of such a feat, without the emotionally manipulative chicanery many films employ, is something to be remembered. And Children of Men definitely shall.
Technorati Tags: children of men, clive owen, julianne moore, alfonso cuaron, movie, cinema, review, film, science fiction, oscars, golden globes
A biology student once said, "The only thing unique to humans is their ability to create other humans." Children of Men deals with a world where even that is taken away. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic near future. This isn't a quick, flash-and-everyone's-dead apocalypse. This apocalypse leaves humanity to crawl towards the inevitable end in the aftermath of an inexplicable loss of human female fertility. The entire future of human existence is limited to the lifespan of a single person
Theodore Faron (Clive Owen) and Julian Taylor (Julianne Moore) had a child at one point, but lost him to the flu pandemic that took place soon after the loss of fertility. Now, Julian is the idealistic leader of a revolutionary group seeking to bring equality to immigrants in England. Theo has given up his activist roots in exchange for cynicism, alcoholism, and a successful business career. During the course of the film, he finds that his idealism isn't completely gone, it was just in hiding, waiting to be used again. He has this opportunity when Julian asks him to help with humanity's single most important mission: to escort the first pregnant woman in eighteen years out of London and to safety.
While this may sound like a run-of-the-mill story, Cuaron is able to bend and stretch the material to his liking. Combined with excellent dialogue and memorable characters, the story takes on a life of its own. The film's refusal to explore the issue of why women are infertile is also quite interesting. Though a couple of explanations are offered, they are never explored. This suggests that this issue is beside the point. The story is not about how people got to their current condition, but what they do to escape that condition. The cause is irrelevant.
Though extremely bleak, their is also a lot of humor in Children. This helps lighten the mood and prevents the film from being too depressing to bare. At the same time, this humor makes the parts of the film that are bleak that much more so by contrast. This not only makes the movie more enjoyable to watch, but makes the narrative more complex. It has emotional valleys and peaks, which keeps the audience from getting worn out on one side of the spectrum or the other.
Cuaron obviously trusted his cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, as the camera work is hardly touched by the editor's shears. Long takes are the norm, tracking the action and allowing every detail of every person or violent act to soak into the audience's psyche. Almost constant movement prevents the image from becoming dull. Though jerky, documentary-style cinematography is used, it isn't overdone to the point of cliche as it is in many movies that attempt to be "realistic." In Children, realism comes from the way this futuristic collapsed society is depicted. The majority of the population lives in squalor, while very few are able to do much better then that. Anger and hopelessness lead to violence becoming a part of everyday life. What makes this realistic is that, for many people, this is the way they live today, in 2007. For them, society has already collapsed.
When the credits roll, it is difficult to really leave Children of Men. It is, in a word, enthralling. The brutality of the cinematic text haunts the spectator, refusing to let go. The immediacy of each frame leaves a lasting impression. Finding a film that is capable of such a feat, without the emotionally manipulative chicanery many films employ, is something to be remembered. And Children of Men definitely shall.
Technorati Tags: children of men, clive owen, julianne moore, alfonso cuaron, movie, cinema, review, film, science fiction, oscars, golden globes
No comments:
Post a Comment