Categorized | Review

Children of Men

Posted on 23 September 2006

**SLIGHT SPOILERS**

I have just got back from watching Children of Men (advert) at the cinema. I will probably write in more detail later, but here are my initial thoughts.

Firstly, this is a great bit of film making, but traditional in theme. It is basically a road movie; that is a movie about going somewhere and taking something to someone. It doesn’t matter what the actual movie is about, visiting God, catching a boat, going to Iraq, it is all the same. And as is usual in such films characters are cast aside, sacrifices are made, helpers turn out to be baddies and baddies turn out to be helpers. There is the also the usual “people dying all around” theme. The “walk through chaos” moments.

For all that though, the action is never less than harrowing.

The moments (and 2nd Director work) are all very good here. Also good is the acting across the board. Very good in fact and especially Michael Cane, but then anyone who knows me would know I would say that!

Once again the great man plays a consummate character part. Clive is singled out for his emotional depth and loosing a little of the zanyness he normally portrays.

Another really good thing is the locations. I recognised all the London ones and the early coffee scene is right around the corner from where I work, and indeed very near where the Muslim bombs went off last year. The Englishness was shining through the locations and there were many cultural references to modern Britain. From the Bansky in the museum next to the Picasso, to the London 2012 T-Shirts. One thing they missed was in a scene where the characters had to get out their ID and reached for passports, if they had gone for ID Cards then truly the finger would have been on the pulse. Nah, on second thoughts I don’t think even this Dystopia could ever be that bad…

And Dystopia it is. Oh yes. A real shit hole the world has become - this is what forced deportations would get us no doubt - in the end to live in a BB world is to live in fear of those supposed protectors of that world. The subtext to the film, apart form the obvious and slightly laboured messianic labour, was that after all this world has come to, life is precious.

And worth fighting for? It is interesting that for a movie full of arms (which I will get to in a moment airsoft fans), the hero’s - all without question - Don’t pick up a gun in the entire film.

The message then is peace is cannot be found in violence.

Nature. Nurture.

People may compare this film to V for Vendetta but the message in that work is not the same. Also missing from this film is the over arcing sense of politics that V battles against. The government in this film seems to be one born from the ashes of necessity because the world did not find a way of reaching out to all mankind. It is evil sure, but not definitively evil like in V.

I guess the messianic part is contained within that.

The “magic bit” is in the film and if you are into it at that point you may well be moved. I personally was moved more when the momentary peace incorporated a fragility that underlined the entire plot. Love is strong, hearts are strong but flesh is weak and sacred. People are sacred.

Not one then for a broody Girlfriend to see. You will be picking out baby clothes in a week!

The magic moment was slightly put off for me by the fact that the army fellows were in ACU and carrying what looked like Star SA80 AEG’s. Still, the main “bad” character had the mother of all tricked out M4’s. Quite silly really.

The end is what I predicted right from the beginning; from even watching the advert for the first time. There is no great revelation only a sense of a job completed at insurmountable cost.

In a world gone mad one man walks the path of peace and pays the price. I have heard that one before…

I remember thinking, when the credits came up, that I was expecting “For God’s sake - Vote Liberal” to come up on the screen.

A good film.

8/10