Children of Men

[Sonic Youth]

Children Of Men


Lee Marshall in Venice
Screendaily


Dir: Alfonso Cuaron. US-UK. 2006. 108mins.

Unwrap the fascinating dystopian vision of the near-future in Alfonso Cuaron’s Children Of Men – based on the sci-fi novel by British literary baroness PD James – and you find a fairly ordinary movie with stock characters. But if its backdrop and story never quite coalesce into a satisfying whole, then the film is saved by its sheer imaginative verve and by the terrific chase and battle sequences, which replace the usual fantasy rhetoric of the genre with a sense of real, cine-verite danger.

Unusual in its rejection of the widescreen format and extensive use of handheld camera, this edgily urban future vision is not obvious multiplex material, particularly in the US, where it goes on limited release on Dec 25 (Sept 22 in the UK). It is also, with the exception of fairly brief appearances by Julianne Moore and Michael Caine, a one-star vehicle - and lead Clive Owen is still only near the beginning of his transformation from arthouse attraction to marquee name.

But the controversy that may be stirred by the film’s clear political message about the dangers of ‘homeland security’ should not trouble distributors, and may turn out to be a publicity-generating plus. Children Of Men is hardly going to appeal anyway to the sort of audiences that would be bothered by its heavily-couched critique.

The premise is neatly presented via an opening TV news bulletin about the death of the world’s youngest person – who is over 18 years old. Women suddenly started becoming infertile somewhere around 2007, and soon stopped having babies altogether. The consequence, by the year 2027, is a world without hope, in which anarchy is rife and most countries are in a state of chaos. Only Britain resists, thanks to an aggressively pursued policy of isolationism, backed up by the army’s rounding up and deportation of illegal immigrants, or “fugees”.

This is not the Orwellian dictatorship of 1984 nor the neo-fascist regime of V For Vendetta, but a more credible degraded democracy in which London looks pretty much like today – except that it’s even dirtier, there are more soldiers around, desperate bands roam the streets, the rich live in gated compounds and the capital’s black taxis have been replaced by moped-rickshaws. The government encourages citizens to report ‘fugees’ to the police and hands out suicide kits for anyone who wants to take the quick way out.

Clive Owen plays Theo, a washed-out former activist who now holds down a government job and drinks to forget. Contacted by a radical group known as the Fishes, which is led by his former lover, Julian (Julianne Moore), he is persuaded to arrange safe passes for – and eventually accompany – Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), a black African ‘fugee’ who has somehow managed to get pregnant.

Clive Owen makes a good reluctant hero: he plays Theo as an ordinary guy, dishevelled and morally numb, who needs a lot of persuasion to take on the role of world saver. Julianne Moore, the committed activist who seems less floored than her former partner by the loss of the child she and Theo had together, is hardly in the frame long enough to make much of an impact. The other characters are even less rounded, with the exception of the pot-smoking counter-culture hermit played by Michael Caine, who we begin to care about just before he leaves the scene.

The inventive use of UK locations, such as Upper Heyford RAF barracks (which becomes a Guantanamo-style detention centre) or the Tate Modern art gallery grounds the parable in reality in a way that studio work would not. The production design stresses Cuaron’s vision of the future as a washed-out, washed-up version of the present and in many respects, things have gone backward rather than forward: cars are patched-up models from 20 years ago (ie the present: if you never expected to see a Fiat Multipla in a sci-fi movie, think again) and characters dress in thrift shop cast-offs.

The quirky soundtrack mixes modern classical requiems, such as a specially-composed theme oratory by John Tavener, with a raft of songs from The Libertines, Pink Floyd and others.

One of the neat things about Cuaron's approach to the chase genre is the way he grounds it in the messiness of real-life escapes: a getaway car won't start when you want it to, bullets hit targets and look and sound frighteningly real, and Theo cuts his foot on a piece of glass for the simmple reason that it's there - and he's only wearing flip-flops.

But it’s the photography and editing that impress above all else. Children Of Men takes a leaf out of Paul Greengrass’ book, proving, as in Bloody Sunday and United 93, that the long takes and mobile, handheld camera style of the TV news documentary can be used to rack up the tension and the believabilty of the thriller and action-adventure genres.

[Mister Tee]

HR saw a slightly better movie and, apparently,a different Clive Owen.

Children of Men


By Ray Bennett

Venice International Film Festival -- Bottom line: Top-flight thriller with political overtones and a hero for our time in Clive Owen.


VENICE, Italy -- In his gripping new thriller "Children of Men," director Alfonso Cuaron takes the classic movie formula of a cynical tough guy required to see an innocent party to safe harbor, and shoots it to pieces.

Based on a novel by British mystery writer P.D. James, the film works both as a thriller and as a satisfying political and social drama. It should prove a winner at the boxoffice in all territories.

Set in 2027, with the world gone to hell in a handbasket, the film paints a bleak portrait of a future in which complete global human infertility has meant that no babies have been born anywhere in 18 years. Disease is rampant and military governments everywhere are out of control even in the U.K.

Former activist Theo (Clive Owen, in top form), now a bored civil servant, finds himself in the thick of the resistance when his former lover, rebel leader Julian (Julianne Moore), persuades him to obtain transit papers for a young woman, Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) who must flee the country.


With vivid imagination, Cuaron plunges the reluctant hero and the girl into a terrifying chase that takes them from the fearful squalor of a terrorized London to a nightmarish refugee camp with both soldiers and rebels trying to kill them.

According to Cuaron, and his exemplary cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and production designers, Geoffrey Kirkland and Jim Clay, the London of 2027 will be a far cry from the city seen in recent films by Richard Curtis and Woody Allen. Dressing real locations to look as awful as possible, the English capital has never appeared so grim.

When a Fleet Street cafeteria is blown up just after he's walked out the door, Theo is reminded of just how bad things are. A fan who only wanted an autograph has just assassinated the world's youngest person, an 18-year-old, and the dead boy is mourned just like Princess Diana.

Julian's request that Theo use his connections to obtain a travel pass for the young woman comes with a chunk of cash but it's clear he has other motives, and so does she. When things go wrong, Theo takes the girl to the country hideaway of his only real friend, a retired newspaper cartoonist named Jasper (Michael Caine, having a great time), who looks after his invalid wife and smokes a lot of dope. Trouble soon arrives, however, and after that there's barely a pause for breath.

Cuaron and co-scripter Timothy J. Sexton do the important little things that help make characters believable and take sufficient time to register the deeper impact of things that are troubling the world. They make a place without children's laughter truly a place of horror.

The sign over the refugee camp saying Homeland Security is a sly touch and there's a splendid sequence in which Theo goes to visit a wealthy contact at the revamped Battersea Power Station to the sound of King Crimson.

Owen carries the film more in the tradition of a Jimmy Stewart or Henry Fonda than a Clint Eastwood or Harrison Ford. He has to wear flip-flops for part of the time without losing his dignity, and he never reaches for a weapon or guns anyone down.

Cuaron and Owen may have created the first believable 21st-century movie hero.

[Sonic Youth]

Children of Men



By DEREK ELLEY
Variety

An often grippingly realized portrait of a not-so-futuristic Blighty, in which fascism and infertility have become uneasy bed partners, Alfonso Cuaron's "Children of Men" is a fine but flawed exercise in dystopia. Much more effective when it's a down-and-dirty actioner than when the script tries to grapple with the multitude of personal and political issues raised, pic suffers from cold lead playing by Clive Owen but gains some heart and soul from a wonderfully eccentric perf by Michael Caine that's awards-season-worthy. Skedded for a fall rollout in Europe, but December release in the U.S., this looks likely to reap comfortable mid-range business.

Set only 21 years in the future, in November 2027, pic -- based on the 1993 novel by British writer P.D. James, better known for her murder mysteries -- posits a world racked by infertility and social chaos, in which terrorism is the norm. The U.K., however, is a relative haven of peace -- "The world has collapsed; only Britain soldiers on," trumpets Brit-TV propaganda -- and as a consequence immigration is out of control.

Cuaron clearly got to know Blighty when shooting "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban." He paints a grungy, Orwellian country of perpetual security announcements, prowling armed police, garbage in the streets and illegal immigrants in cages -- in fact, not so different from the U.K. today, and far more believable in every respect than in the feeble "V for Vendetta."

Main difference from the present is that, due to a sudden outbreak of female infertility, there have been no births in the world since 2009.

A surprising demo of what is to come on the action front is provided in the opening sequence as activist-turned-bureaucrat Theo Baron (Owen) is almost blown to pieces by a terrorist bomb in central London. Using that as an excuse to take time off from his boring ministry job, he travels out of town -- in a riot-protected train -- to visit his old friend, onetime political cartoonist Jasper (Caine), who grows his own pot in the forest in which he lives.

As soon as Theo gets back to London, he is kidnapped by the terrorist group Fishes, which campaigns for equal rights for all immigrants. Its leader turns out to be Julian Taylor (Julianne Moore), with whom Theo was a student activist 20 years ago and with whom he even had a kid that died. She offers the broke and heavy-drinking Theo a sizable sum to get transit papers for an illegal refugee, Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), whom they're smuggling out of the country.

Before he knows it, Theo is on the run with Kee -- from both the authorities and renegade members of Fish -- as Kee turns out to be eight months pregnant with the first child on Earth in 18 years. It's finally left to him to smuggle Kee to the shadowy offshore organization, The Human Project, a group of scientists dedicated to finding a cure for global infertility.

Script by Cuaron and Timothy J. Sexton doesn't seem very interested in filling in background. The outbreak of infertility is never explained, The Human Project remains extremely lacking in detail, the global collapse of society is vaguely attributed to Islamic terrorism in newscasts caught, and why the neo-fascistic U.K. is sought out by so many immigrants is never made clear.

On the personal side, Theo and Julian's backstory emerges only gradually, and doesn't do much to warm up the rather icy chemistry between thesps Owen and Moore in their relatively few scenes together. In fact, it's the promising young Ashitey (from "Shooting Dogs") who effectively becomes pic's femme lead, as the relationship between Theo and Kee blooms on the run.

Aside from the two sequences in which Theo visits Jasper, pic's dialogue hardly grapples with any of the broader issues thrown up by the script. Caine's beatific perf, in hippie spectacles and shoulder-length hair, is treasurable, and provides the two shafts of sunlight in the otherwise gray and wintry movie.

Other cameos by well-known names are more hit-and-miss: Peter Mullan's turn as a pragmatic security guard adds extra spice to the socko final reels, whereas Danny Huston's, as a government minister, seems to have been imported from a different movie.

However, on the action front, pic more than delivers: not in bang-for-your-buck spectacle but in the kind of gritty, docu-like sequences that haul viewers out of their seats and alongside the main protags. Along with camera operator George Richmond -- who shot the entire movie handheld in 16 weeks -- Cuaron orchestrates several lengthy single takes that have a front-line feel.

These include an attack in a car (a single take that required a special rig for the camera to get inside and around the car) and the movie's showpiece climax. Latter single take recalls "Full Metal Jacket" in its landscape and "Black Hawk Down" in its intensity.

Production and costume design have the utterly believable look of the near future: more like the present day with a few tweaks. And Cuaron's decision not to shoot in widescreen actually accentuates the movie's gritty power. U.K. locations are all well used, including some right in the heart of London.