The Children of Men

[rm]

I decided to see this alone tonight, knowing (correctly) that I'd want to see it again with people. it is very excellent, but I make a solemn vow never, ever to go to another movie on the Upper East Side, ever, because the audience was frightful and evil.

The Children of Men is a remarkably unsentimental film, something which borders on the frustrating in places. Music swells and you want a moment, just a moment to grieve, to take in the import to assimilate what is happening around you. And, if Cuaron gave you that moment there might be tremendously more art to talk about in this film, but it wouldn't make it a more artful picture by any means.

While The Children of Men contains no sudden plot twists worth discussing in a review and we all know the basics of the plot by now, the less you know going into it, the better. Do not obsessively read reviews before you see this and be prepared to be shaken by small details and the film's technical brillance (everyone keeps going on about the long, singleshot which is utterly astounding, but the sound mixing and editing on this is a thing of terror).

Clive Owen is astounding in this; it hurts to watch him in places.

Fasntastic use of pop music to devastating effect. Of particular note, Ruby Tuesday and the creepiest use of In the Court of the Crimson King, EVER.

some spoilery stuff below the cut.



People remark often on the black humour of the ongoing drama of shoes for Owen's character Theo. If you didn't already know he was going to die, this should telegraph it for you.

Race and ethnicity issues in this film are incredibly complex and complicated further by putting an American racial lens onto a British film that is, among other things, critiquing some of the mess America has made of the world at present. Which is to say there's layers and layers here, and if you want to get into this issue, you really have to get into it.

In one extended battle scene "blood" splatters onto the camera lens. This is facinating, because for those in teh audience who do not wearglasses, many complained afterwards that it removed them from teh immediacy of the moment, feeling as if they were on a documentary crew of it. But I wear glasses, for me, that was blood on my lenses, not the camera lens.

For all that we do have to be told and not shown things, the film does a remarkable job of making much of the state of the world casually present. "Were your parents in New York when it happened." "Yeah. What can you do?" We don't know what they're talking about, just that it's much worse than 9/11.



For all the noise this film is generating, it's surprisingly small in a lot of ways, but, while we knew Cuaron was really talented, this makes him a major, major force to be reckoned with.

Comments

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

why, why did lj eat the first time i wrote this? arrgh.

i am having trouble getting enthusiastic about this movie. dystopian sf, you'd think it'd be right up my alley. but the pregnant woman without whom there would be no story, she gets one quick view in the commercials, and she's a) naked, and b) shown from the back, both of which are pretty dehumanizing. also, until i just went and looked it up on imdb, i was wondering if julianne moore was the one who was pregnant; she's not in the commercial either, but at least she's a named actress.

sometimes, being a feminist really cuts down on the number of movies i want to see.

[rm.livejournal.com]

The film does raise all sorts of unpleasant questions about gender both purposefully and quite accidentally. What is feminism in a world not threatened with extinction but seemingly scheduled for it in a few decades? Is it relevant?

The pregnant woman in the film is twenty. She has never seen another pregnant person. No one has seen a pregnant person in almost two decades. She takes off her shirt, much to the horror of everyone in that scene, because there is no way on earth anyone would believe her otherwise. I also have a hard time with the idea that nudity is inherently dehumanizing. The whole film is about different types of dehumanization, but this moment in the actual movie isn't really one of them. (Much has also been made of the fact that she is black, which is a whole 'nother can of worms because however the actress was cast, it would be about race, because the character is so singular in her world.) Anyway, we only see her from the back in the previews, because apparently the movie makers are under the dillusion that people won't know the basics of the plot going in. I mean, it is cooler, that moment when we do see her if it's a shock, but the movie telegraphs what's coming pretty hard.

Julianne Moore is in about 30% of the film, if that. The film is low on star power and they are doing anythign they can to get people to see it. She is also in some of the commercials.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

argh-- when i rewrite due to lj gremlins eating things, i get terse and sometimes less comprehensible.

i don't think (and didn't intend to imply) that nudity is inherently dehumanizing. but being the only person naked in a room full of people who are clothed can be. the movie may have enough context around that scene to make it not be; the commercials really don't, and it creeps me out.

i'm one of those people who thinks that feminism will be relevant until the patriarchy disappears. and i don't think that creeping extinction will get rid of the patriarchy. not until it gets rid of humanity, anyhow.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oh I think it's definitely relevant. But the question the movie doesn't ask, but I haven't been able to shake is -- the species is dying out, one woman or ten women -- some really small number are found who can still get pregnant and give birth. What if they don't want to?