There is so much to like about Children of Men (UK/USA 2006 Alfonso Cuaron), and yet also so much to loathe.
Let’s be positive to begin with. The things I liked included:
- the aesthetic – the reality of the diegesis is intricately and intelligently realised through exceptional art design and production (simply breathtaking)
- the cinematography - captures the action and the reality surrounding the action in a beautiful manner (as Slavoj Zizek mentions, there is a wonderful tension between foreground and background throughout the film)
- the action sequences – unnervingly close to our contemporary reality (terrorist bombings, car-jacking, militant uprisings)
- the film’s indirect dialogue with contemporary issues of migration, terrorism and the rise of military state.
And yet, with so much to like, I still found the film unpalatable for several reasons; so which I could immediately identify, and others that emerged from greater reflection.
Things that immediately annoyed me:
- having great actors playing horribly underrealiesd two-dimensional characters
- corny pathetic dialogue
- use of cliched (and boring!) diegetical devices such as: romantic lovers torn apart and reunited for a common goal (please!); a succession of mother-like older women guiding/assisting the young fertile woman (come on, really!?);
- that the film works so hard to achieve a gritty realistic feel through multiple devices [eg, the incredible long-takes during action sequences, magnificent set pieces and creation of atmosphere through incredible attention to background detail], and then it completely destroys this finely achieved sense of diegetic reality (that is a lovely uncanny to our contemporary setting) through lame moments [eg What the hell is with Owen and Moore passing a ping-pong ball? And the soliders all stopping to watch the baby? That scene could have been executed so much better to maintain the sense of realism....]
This film makes me so frustrated!!!
There is so much to like about its production aesthetics, the incredible detail, visual style and cinematic production values. It is visually stunning. Yet, incredibly, the basic story (the underlying foundation of any film) does not do justice to these other superb elements of the film. It has very interesting concepts and ideas that are poorly executed through weak (thin) characters, lame diegetic architecture, and internal contradictions.
Having voiced my concerns, Children of Men certainly provides one with a lot of different things to discuss….I feel that Paul Virilio’s quote (p 73 in “A travelling shot over Eighty Years”) accurately caputes the atmosphere that Cuaron has sort and achieved: “The intensity of automatic weaponry and the new capacities of photographic equipment combine to project a final image of the world, a world in the throes of dematerialization and eventual total disintegration, one in which the cinema of the Lumiere brothers becomes more reliable than Junger’s melancholy look-out who can no longer believe his eyes.” (p73). Cuaron’s vision is certainly quite apocalyptic.
The use of such simplistic and cliched “diegetic devices” was more than appropriate in Children of Men. This movie was about hope and seeking a new beginning. Children of Men was about the fundamentals (such a cliche I know) about being alive whether as an individual or as a member of a species.
This film has only one real and major fault. It is and was way ahead of its time.
Such critics (snobs) like yourself probably are just frustrated that their missing something. Which is your fault and not that of the director.
That was the worst and most superficial review I have ever read.
Comment by rbj — June 9, 2008 @ 12:03 pm
RBJ, I’m glad that my review provoked such a passionate response.
However, I have three points to make in reply.
Firstly, your comment is rather short on evidence to justify your argument or your conclusions about my review.
Secondly, please respect other peoples right to an opinion. If you don’t agree, attack the arguments that have been made, but do not attack the critic. Personal attacks generally hint at an “emotive” argument that lacks a credible (rational) foundation.
Thirdly, I welcome a continuing dialogue with you about this film, but you’ll need to come up with more than cliched rhetoric. For example: “it is and was way ahead of its time” – on what evidence can you justify this bland statement? how is ‘Children of Men’ in any way more advanced than any other film produced in 2006?
I look forward to further explication of your defence of ‘Children of Men’.
Comment by gus — June 9, 2008 @ 1:42 pm
With all due respect,
I don’t usually receive replies.
People who write so coldly and aloofly are usually so full of credible and rational foundations that they have made up their mind long before the credits roll. They tend to look at paintings only to determine what the canvas is made of.
The evidence you produced to express your dislike for the story of the film is the same evidence that I can use. On one of the film’s many posters it read “The future’s a thing of the past”. Children were not being born. The world was getting older and coming to an end. Nothing new was being produced. This was not the future of Orwell or Kubrick or Philp K. Dick. So the same cliches you mentioned (the lost lovers reuniting, the succession of mother types, etc) points to the “same old story” theme readily apparent in most of the film. It was meant to create an atmosphere where there was no hope for the future. That there would be no new ideas.
Clive Owen’s character, Theo, was a man completely absent of hope. Apparent in an earlier scene of the film where he exclaims that humanity was over with long before infertility became a problem. Yet through all this he still sacrificed his life to save what could indeed be humanity’s last hope. Far from a two-dimensional character. He went from being a dispassionate automaton to a man passionately dedicated to getting the child of a stranger to safety.
I found your review superficial because you disliked the story of the film with a simplistic dismissal of a few minor thematic elements. The sequence with the ping-pong was a mere light-hearted moment between two former lovers (recall how he wept when she was killed).
The sequence where the soldiers stop to look at the baby was necessarily dramatic and no “sense of realism was lost”. This was a “humanity still has something going for it” kind of moment.
I will attack the critic all I want. Your review reeked of intellectual and aesthetic snobbery. I’ll stick to my “cliched rhetoric” over your sterile automaton analysis.
Comment by rbj — June 9, 2008 @ 2:22 pm