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Cuarón's fertile imagination
CHILDREN OF MEN
Directed by Alfonso Cuarón
Certificate 15
Director Alfonso Cuarón’s film, which prophesies a very dark few years ahead for the human race, requires a giant leap of the imagination for it to be enjoyable. But if you remember this from the moment the film starts Children Of Men is quite a spooky look into the near future.
Cuarón is a mixed bag of a filmmaker. His credits range from the naughty boys-turn-into-men Spanish language movie Y Tu Mama Tambien, through to Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban.
Children of Men is unlike anything he has attempted before. Taken from a novel by PD James, it is a story that holds a web of warnings and is full of allegories to today’s geo-political situations.
It is 2027 and the human race faces extinction. No babies have been born for 18 years as men and women are infertile.
It’s a grim premise and helped by some fantastic cinematography. London has never looked such a dump.
Clive Owen (pictured below) plays civil servant Theo Faron who, in the past, was a political activist.
Theo is kidnapped by a terror group known as The Fishes, who are fighting to secure equal rights for immigrants. Britain in 2027 has corralled immigrants into designated ghetto areas, surrounded them with wire and patrols.
He is coerced into getting the group papers for one of them who needs to escape. And it is soon revealed that the lady he has been asked to help is pregnant. Theo then needs to make sure she escapes safely, and therefore has to avoid a series of horrible baddies out to get him and his precious friend.
Highlights of the film include Michael Caine as a hairy dope-smoker whose character offers help and advice to Theo. Caine’s performance is perhaps the highlight of the film.
Cuarón has grabbed a large story tell and at times tries to squeeze out too many statements about how the world circa 2006 is going down the pan.
He ruminates continuously on such thorny, contemporary issues such as racism, immigration and terrorism. But it is well shot, has great acting from Owen, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine, and despite having a plot riddled with unanswered questions, Children Of Men has enough going on to make it a worthy piece of doom-laden sci-fi which tips a wink to Stanley Kubrick. |
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