Children of Men
No, Mr. Lacey, this is not better than
Pan's Labyrinth. It
is, however, an awful, awful lot more important.
I read a lot of film reviews and magazines and I watch a lot of films, and the critics are forever preaching about how such-and-such a film "burns with political relevence in modern times," or something. Take that catastrophic mistake of a disgrace,
War of the Worlds by saint Spielberg. Three-legged aliens that spend two days blowing up the land of the free and then get the flu and collapse are meant to make us all terribly introspective because of all the bombing that happens these days. I'm sure Mr Lacey will be able to explain what kind of a point that was meant to get across but it was lost on me.
As another example, look at
Good Night, and Good Luck. An excellent film, of course, but making a film about a corrupt government 50 years ago only tells you that today's government is also corrupt. My point is, it's not saying anything new or telling us anything we don't know. George Bush is stupid and wrong and war-obsessed, yes, we've all known this for a very long time- and we don't need you to remind us of Senator McCarthy in order to condemn him.
So
Children of Men is fantastically, fantastically blunt, straight, and to the point. The first thing that struck me on watching it was how familiar everything seemed. The picture of Britain it paints is very, very close to the one in which I'm typing this. The film isn't far-fetched speculation, like the farcical travesty of
V For Vendetta. It's a prediction. It should serve as a warning film, it already is a work of propaganda, and it's about as effective as propaganda ever will be in 2007.
The film is explicit in its warnings, unlike the aforementioned films that just kind of skirt round any clear message in order to give the impression of seeming very important and clever. For example, when Theo visits Jasper's house, we see little press cuttings involving the name "Bush" and mentioning some strange occurence or other called the "Iraq War-" something I don't think Mr. Cuaron wanted to be particularly discrete about.
The inclusion of modern-day pop culture references was also particularly poignant. The soundtrack, for example, contained music by Radiohead, John Lennon, Aphex Twin and Jarvis Cocker. There was a slightly ironic background image of the Pink Floyd Pig swaying in the wind. I also couldn't help but notice how Michael Caine's character had been made to look and even act in a way that bore unsubtle similarities to John Lennon- whose attitude was, of course, distinctly anti-war.
My only real worry was that, like this review, the film seemed to wander a bit towards the end, or at least to merge into the familiar kind of blood-and-dirt-and-crumbling-old-buildings battle sequence I've seen a billion times in films like
Saving Private Ryan. However, for the most part, it has an impact heavier than an enormous lead whale falling from the top of a giant springboard on top of Ben Nevis.
9 out of 10.
