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Tuesday, 09 January 2007 16:21 |
By JIM GENARO
Dystopian science fiction has long been fertile ground for authors and filmmakers wishing to make statements about current political realities.
From classics such as "Brave New World" and "1984" to more recent cinematic entries into the genre, such as "The Matrix" series and "Minority Report," depictions of a future gone wrong have continued to captivate audiences while offering political commentaries.
"Children of Men," the new film by director Alfonso Cuar??n, continues this tradition with a steady, but somewhat heavy hand.
The
film is set in England in a not-too-distant future, in which humanity
faces extinction because of to a global infertility pandemic. In 18
years, not a single child has been born in the world, though no one
knows why.
Meanwhile,
British society has become increasingly polarized, with the government
waging a war on illegal immigrants, rounding them up in cages and
sending them to prisons and ghettos.
It is against
this backdrop that the filmës protagonist, Theodore Faron (Clive Owen),
finds himself inadvertently propelled into a life-or-death struggle
when his ex, Julian Taylor (Julianne Moore), now a member of a
pro-immigrant terrorist organization, kidnaps him and offers him a
job: help a young immigrant woman get papers to allow her to travel to
the coast.
Faron accepts the assignment and attempts to escort Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), the young woman in question, to safety.
 However, the job
becomes much more complicated when Faron learns that Kee is
miraculously pregnant, a development that could save humanity, except
that the government would never allow the public to know that a black
refugee was the first woman to conceive a baby in nearly two decades.
The rest of the
film is a fast-paced adventure, with Faron and Kee fleeing both the
government and the terrorists, who hope to exploit her pregnancy as a
rallying cry for the revolution they seek to ignite.
Where the film
succeeds is in its ability to engage the viewer in the story. The
action is intense, the violence exceedingly graphic and the characters
are, by and large, acted with an admirable realism.
Keeës fear is palpable, as her life and that of her baby are continuously imperiled by bullets, bombs and other threats.
Also, the movie
features one of the most amusing car-chase scenes ever, with Faron
pushing an old vehicle in an effort to jump-start it while being chased
by gunmen on foot.
A major flaw of the movie, however, is its tendency to overstate its message, virtually hammering the audience over the head.
For instance, in
once scene, illegal immigrants are being rounded up, beaten, attacked
by dogs and subjected to various forms of abuse in images obviously
inspired by the photographs of U.S. soldiers mistreating prisoners at
Abu Graib.
 While this made
a strong impact, one has to wonder if it was really necessary to have a
sign above the prison that read "Homeland Security" (For that matter,
does the U.K. have a Department of Homeland Security?).
Furthermore,
infertility, terrorism and illegal immigrants are not the only horrors
of this dystopian world. Faronës son was killed in a flu pandemic and
New York City has been destroyed in a nuclear attack.
Optimists and
lovers of happy endings, beware ÇƒÓ this movie is not your typical
Hollywood production. There are no easy answers offered, no big
romances and very little reprieve from the continual barrage of terror
and dismay that the main characters face.
Violence
permeates every aspect of "Children of Men." It shows the horrors of
war in a way that few films ever successfully do. War is not depicted
as heroic; it is revealed for the brutal, savage cruelty that it is.
Suffering abounds and the innocent are slaughtered in droves.
In many ways,
the film is a commentary on the sanctity of life. In a world where the
sound of children playing has been entirely obliterated, people have
turned ever more to violence, destroying life because they can no
longer give live.
Nonetheless,
there are moments of beauty throughout. One of the most touching
aspects of the film is the joy and spiritual opening that people
experience at the sight of a newborn baby ÇƒÓ the first many of them have
ever seen.
Also, Michael
Caine gives a wonderful performance as Jasper Palmer, Faronës
pot-dealing, hippie friend, who brings a touch of levity to the film.
"Children of
Men" is not a movie to see lightly. It is powerful, disturbing and
thought-provoking. What it lacks in subtlety, it makes up for in vivid
realism.
But donët expect
to leave the theater feeling good; this is a film that asks hard
questions and leaves the viewer contemplating the horrors of this
world, while praying that such futures do not come to pass.
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