"As a politically postmodern epic, Children may fall short to readers of the novel. But if you savor the boldness with which Cuarón brings this story of survival within chaos to life, you will be joyously entertained."
The audience sits dull as the small electric car packed with our protagonists buzzes down an empty parkway. The camera sits on a narrow swivel in the backseat of the crowded sedan. Suddenly, a flaming pickup truck comes screaming down the hillside and cuts off the road. A violent mob of hundreds of people swarms the car swinging bats and throwing Molotov Cocktails. The ensuing chase scene, one of the most mind blowing and awe inspiring sequences ever captured on film, is carried out without a single cut. Throughout Children of Men, action sequences go on for up to seven minutes without a cut or camera change. The level of technical expertise on display throughout this film is truly something to behold, and if the story were without point nor relevance, Children of Men would still serve as a visual masterpiece.
The camera work is only one part of why Children of Men should strike you. The film's postmodern undertones never really boil over, yet we are still able to take a great deal from the film. The story takes place in Britain in 2027, where for eighteen years women have been unable to have babies. This hopelessness for the future has left many of the world's greatest countries in ruin due to revolt and war. The British are on the brink of a revolution of their own when the first baby in eighteen years is born to a young Caribbean woman. There is a struggle over who is to claim the child and for what purpose, as a group of revolutionaries wants to use the baby as proof of the government's control over the people, while others believe the baby should be celebrated rather than used for political gain. About halfway through, the story begins to shrink from a postmodern epic to a story about survival. By the end of the film, the world of political and social upheaval is all but forgotten and the focus of the characters becomes the child.
And so ultimately the story is not one of postmodernist systems of control or global-terrorism, but one of survival. The survival of a single baby, and in that, the survival of an entire race. And although the film has a difficult time wrapping up, and certainly could use another half an hour for resolution, the overall theme does resonate. The presentation of the narrative is so well developed and executed that the true meaning of the film may not come to you until after viewing it. But to find the true message of Children you must look beyond the political and sociological barriers it presents and understand that this is a story about humanism.
In the near future, the human race is plunged into a state of chaos. What more poetic, what more ironic than for a child to help lift the veil from our eyes and remind us that we are all brothers and sisters. This is the effervescent message of Children of Men, and from both dramatic and technical perspectives the film is able to deliver this message with precision and flair.
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