The Children of Men
Jan. 6th, 2007 02:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmI 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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-06 10:21 pm (UTC)