Bleak vision of a near future Britain in which women can no longer conceive and illegal immigrants are hunted down and deported Nazi-style.Owing much to 28 Days Later in terms of its visual pallette - London is a smoggy drained heartland - Children of Men follows cynical Theo (Clive Owen on cracking, disshevelled form) as he is dragged into a desperate plot to transport to safety the last pregnant female on the planet. Crossed and double-crossed along the way, the journey is anything but easy. Theo has to overcome his own feelings of loss (his son died young) as well as cope with his re-emerging political conscience.
Featuring great supporting performances from Michael Caine (virtually unrecognisable as a long-haired, skunk-toting political cartoonist), Julianne Moore (as Theo's terrorist ex-wife) and Clare-Hope Ashitey (as Theo's terrified charge Kee), Children of Men is a compelling film in a world gone insane. While echoes of the Greatest Story Ever Told (TM) can be found by those who seek them, Cuaron tackles today's pressing issues head-on; the environment is trashed, the Government is run by extremists, immigrants are victims of a new Holocaust, and the police have run amok.
Filmed in fluid long takes to maintain a documentary feel, the action scenes are quite amazing. The film is the bleakest vision of the future I've seen onscreen since Ridley Scott's Bladerunner. The scene where Theo and Kee hole up in a deserted primary school is perhaps one of the eeriest moments in the film: this is a world where there are no children to go to school afterall.
Children of Men is not an easy film to watch, but one which rewards the effort. It is a brave attempt to tackle real issues in an intelligent way and for this it is worth more than all of last year's empty-hearted blockbusters put together.
Mr Mudd
No comments:
Post a Comment