New Century Of Cinema: Children of Men

(This is a new, fairly regular column I'm going to try to keep posted, where I examine and review my choices for the best films 

of the first decade of the new century. I don't get to watch movies particularly often, but I'll add to this list as I can.)

It is the year 2027 and no children have been born anywhere in the world for more than eighteen years.  Without a future, society is on the brink of annihilation; most nations have crumbled, Britain soldiers on.  Suicide drugs are free, immigrants are caged into unspeakable camps to await deportation or death, and fascism and terror battle for the upper hand.  Yet, in the midst of the blackness, even at the end, there is hope.  That is the premise of Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, a stunning film of remarkable emotion and visceral impact.

Clive Owen plays Theo Farron, a one-time political activist now consigned to apathy.  One day he is kidnapped by a militant activist group headed by his ex-lover (Julianne Moore).  She asks him to use his influence to procure transit papers for a young refugee, Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey); it is pivotal she be allowed to move unencumbered towards the coast.  He obliges.  After a sudden assassination that couples the realization that Kee is pregnant and in great danger, he becomes her protector.  Together they flee from the government and the radicals, winding up in Bexhill Refugee Camp where they're to meet a ship that will transport Kee safely out of Britian.

Cuaron's vision of mankind at the end of days is enthralling.  There are times when we are so engrossed we forget that we're seeing sets and special effects; we mistake this London for a real place. Children of Men works so well because it doesn't opt to reinvent the wheel.  There are no towering CGI effects--it takes little stretch of imagination to see the world coming to this in twenty years.  The production designers (Jim Clay and Geoffrey Kirkland) have peppered their cityscape with government propaganda reminiscent of New York's anti-terror campaign (I was also reminded of the wanted posters in Cuaron's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban).   Everything looks much as it does now, but older and less cared for.  Stray animals roam the streets, unoccupied with the troubles of man.  The refugee camp is a brilliant achievement,  effectively evoking Polish ghettos in World War Two.  There are beautiful scenes in an abandoned grade school that linger long after the credits roll.

I have made the film sound as if it is only a visual achievement, but it succeeds on all levels.  It is, above all, an action film and it has sequences so taut and brutal it makes the animated theatrics of Michael Bay seem like a Nickelodeon cartoon.  Shooting in long, unbroken takes, these scenes have an urgency that the audience responds to with a teeth-clenching physicality.  A chase down a tree-lined highway is terrifying, because it shows us for the first time of what the film is capable.  Theo's ascent in a war-torn, bullet-riddled apartment complex is unbearable, because we know how much is at stake.  Using all the tools at his disposal-- CGI, editing, cinematography-- Cuaron has created a thriller for the ages.

What elevates Children of Men from standard issue sci-fi action and ultimately makes it a masterpiece, however, is that it never allows the human aspect of its tale to take second stage to the visuals or the action, and the film has scenes so powerful that they moved me to tears.  In the beginning, all faith in humanity is drained from this picture.  Then, slowly and assuredly, in tiny gestures in the unlikeliest of places, it returns.  The result is an undeniable emotional response that subconsciously swells within us, breaking the surface in breathtaking moments that leave us gasping.  It is pivotal that we believe these characters are real people struggling for meaning in times that do not invite it, and we do.  The performances are indicative of this-- low key and pitch perfect.  Julianne Moore and Michael Caine (as an aging hippie) have small roles, but they leave an impression.  As the everyman, Clive Owen is great at projecting an ordinary guy in extraordinary circumstances.  And Clare-Hope Ashitey grounds scenes simply with her presence.

Yes, this future is bleak, but this film is not hopeless.  By dragging us so breathlessly through all this fear and dread and asking us to examine a stunningly rendered future world that is almost unbearable, Cuaron helps us  to appreciate the beams of goodness in his vision of the end of humanity.  And despite all this darkness, there is so much light.