Children of Men

[polystyle]

'Seed of the wyld'

Yea, STN Riddley does stick with you doesn't it ...

As for entertaining the thoughts about actually doing it as a movie -
hey , let's find the right Production Company with proper budget
and we can surely figure out who's on the sdtk !

Looking forward to seeing Children again now that it's been some days since seeing it ...

 

[ripley]

I liked it.

I think Clive Owen is great in that craggy watchable Humphrey Bogart kind of way.

I like that he doesn't pick up a gun in the entire film, even though guns abound.

The plot was thin, but adequate for the point. It was more about the imagery, which worked for me. Straight out of recent and not so recent history.

and since I miss London, I liked how rooted in (some parts of) London and English culture it was. The midwife lady reminded me of many activists I knew there, who have quite different cultural references than American ones, the dubstep sounds were perfectly placed, the interplay between people... I dunno it seemed quite familiar to me.

but I found it quite affecting. Not helpful for attending a family dinner immediately after.

 

[Gavin]

Just caught this on DVD and loved it. Even if it hadn't tickled all the right political spots, the action scenes were tremendous even on my tiny TV.

The DVD is worth checking out for the extras, with Dissensus-fave Slavoj Zizek all over it, along with Naomi Klein, John Gray, Tudorov, and others. "What I love about what this film shez about the current shtate of global capitalishm..."

 

[IdleRich]

I watched this a week or two ago and I really enjoyed it in the main. It looked amazing all of the way through (especially London) and it had some fantastic scenes (particularly the one where they are attacked in their car and when they are going in to the detention centre), plus Clive Owen and several of the other actors were good at doing what they needed to. On the other hand, some of the actors (notably the pregnant girl) were not so good and, more importantly, at the (slightly cheesey) end I was left with a feeling that the whole story didn't quite add up to anything. Some of the protracted battle scenes I could have done without but I guess that is just personal taste.
Overall though I don't want to sound too down on it as I was definitely on the edge of my seat at points and I was sucked right into it through most of the film. Loads of clever touches such as when they meet in an abandoned school and you become more aware of what a world without children might mean. I would certainly recommend that anyone watches it.
One thing I don't get though, a number of people have said that they cried and I've seen other people say the same, I'm totally at a loss to know what bits brought this on - can anyone shed any light?

 

[noel emits]

One thing I don't get though, a number of people have said that they cried and I've seen other people say the same, I'm totally at a loss to know what bits brought this on - can anyone shed any light?

I found it quite emotionally powerful for a couple of reasons. I think it's mostly because of how believable the portrayal of a breakdown in British society is - regardless of the reason for this in the film. Also the idea of humanity facing literally no future has to have some resonance if you feel at all connected to the human race (I was surprised to discover I do ). Add to that the visceral nature of the action scenes and it has quite an impact. Having said that I did see it in the cinema at 11:00am on a rainy Tuesday morning or something so I was feeling quite bleak anyway and receptive to the media as one is in the mornings.

 

[IdleRich]

"I found it quite emotionally powerful for a couple of reasons. I think it's mostly because of how believable the portrayal of a breakdown in British society is"

I agree that it is a pretty good representation of how (I imagine) society would feel should its total breakdown, and indeed, end be inevitable.

"Also the idea of humanity facing literally no future has to have some resonance if you feel at all connected to the human race"

I think that there is an interesting discussion to be had there (my girlfriend, not entirely jokingly, said something along the lines of "a world without kids - fantastic") but I broadly agree with you.
I guess that I didn't find the film strong enough to actually get truly caught up in the whole thing sufficiently to be moved to tears - I just found it fairly good and exciting entertainment. Then again if you had asked me a week ago when was the last time I'd come close to crying at a film I would have told you I can't remember so maybe it's not surprising.

 

[shudder]

Anthony Lane's New Yorker review was quite good. Last Paragraph:

The idea of the world redeemed by a helpless infant is a specifically Christian one, but here it shines out from a landscape that is bitterly stripped of faith. The people I know who have seen “Children of Men” have admired its grip, but they had to be dragged to the theatre; it’s a film that you need to see, not a film that you especially want to. I guess it should it be logged as sci-fi, yet by 2027 mankind is clearly beyond the reach of science, and the roughened pace of the film—photographed by Emmanuel Lubezki—leans away from fiction and toward the natural stutter of reportage. When a bomb explodes in Tony Scott’s “Déjà Vu,” it is tensely prepared for and filmed with a lingering gloat; when a bomb explodes in “Children of Men,” it bursts from nowhere on a dreary street. Even if you don’t buy the main conceit, the scumbled texture of the movie makes it feel not just plausible but recognizable, and Cuarón takes care never to paint the future as consolingly different. Theo doesn’t go to work in an aluminum-foil catsuit with a diagonal zip; he wears a jacket and tie. And where the cars of “Blade Runner” hovered in the ruined air, the vehicles here still trundle along on roads. The Britain of twenty years’ time, in short, will be just like the Britain of today, but worse. The sole survivors—the only citizens not to have caved in to despair—are shaggy old-timers like Jasper (Michael Caine), a friend of Theo’s who saw it coming. He lives in a forest hideaway, smokes weed, plays loud music, and still finds something to laugh about. Such is the moral of this tough, destabilizing film: the hippies were right all along.