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Printer-Friendly ModeImages painted in Children of Men intense, stirring
January 22, 2007 —
Children of Men is at once beautiful and terrible, hopeful and hopeless. Grittily realistic in style, it portrays a bleak future that is alarming and moving. Amidst the apparent futility of it all, though, there is a glimpse of hope.
Set in 2027 Britain, Children of Men begins with a small crowd watching the news in a coffee house, which informs them that the youngest person in the world has just died. Tears run, and it's all very confusing until the audience is informed that at some point years back, women became infertile. Nobody knows why, but the consequences are there nonetheless: the human race is dying.
Clive Owen plays Theo Faron, a disillusioned former activist who spends much of his time with his old friend Jasper Palmer, played by Michael Caine. It was difficult for me to pin down what Theo's occupation is, though he does work. Many of these small details are obscure in Children of Men, not because of poor presentation but because it doesn't focus on small details. This is a movie of tone and emotion.
The 2027 in Children of Men is a dark and depressing one. There always seems to be something burning just offscreen, and the British government has outlawed all immigration, resulting in frequent views of caged refugees. The environment reminded me of 28 Days Later, especially when the characters travel on empty highways and go to secluded country destinations.
It is in these moments of brief peace that Children of Men portrays a sort of beauty that I have seen in very few movies. In one such respite Theo is some distance away from Jasper's house collecting brush in the woods with a dog. A wind blows and the handheld camera pans up to reveal the towering trees swaying. There is something to be said about the simplicity of shots like these, which seem far more effective than the increasingly common glazed-over computer graphics in many films. Here is the world in its real enormity and wonder.
This presentation also extends to scenes of intense violence. It struck me while watching Children of Men that it features scenes of violence and warfare that are actually more intense than the majority of movies about real wars that I have seen. I felt the fear and frustration of characters as they tried to escape pursuers and was relieved along with them when the danger was over. This is a result not only of convincing performances by the likes of Owen, but also superb and uncompromising cinematography and editing.
The only faults to be found in Children of Men are those of the nitpicker: of course people 15 and 20 feet away would hear car doors and trunks opening and closing, and certainly one person would be unlikely to escape the wrath of so many bullets. Again though, I would say that Children of Men is not a movie concerned with small details, but rather with painting a big picture that says more about society and nature than could be expected from only words.