Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Children of Men
Bad Mother Coitus Rating... 5 of 7
According to movies the not to distant future is rarely a warm and cuddly place. Often times it provides us with urban cityscapes that are ravaged by nuclear bombs, gross scenes where humanity has been reduced to a savage's level and all that is left is raw hope reminder to those of us who are in the past that this is our future to prevent.
Children of Men is a movie to go into with high expectations. This is not because it delivers on anything new nor does it necessarily perform better what has come before it. In fact midway through the movie you will find yourself questioning why you are liking the movie. Clive Owen’s Theo seems like a stock type character. Smart guy who had something bad happen to him so he turned into a loser, alcoholic, smoker and is just in need of that dare to be great speech so that he can turn into something special (the Keanu Reeves character). But in Children of Men Clive Owen breathes a pathos into an overly predictable character showing true humanity in a horrible world.
The strengths of this movie is in the story telling, most notably in how it tells a back story. This is done not by bludgeoning the viewer over the head with a synoptic history of how the world came about, instead it tells the story of the fall through subtleties: old newspapers that have been placed on windows to blot out the sun, graffiti on the ruined sides of buildings and relics of music from better and more happy times.
The filming of the movie is also unique. Replaced are the standard framed shots with hand held cameras. Elongated shots where blood remains on the camera travel through abandoned subway cars, up stairs, into derelict buildings. Shrapnel peels off of concrete, RPG’s are fired heedless of who is right and who is wrong into crowds and explosions rock seemingly innocent streets.
This is a movie to go to not because it is a deep movie yet not because it is popcorn fun. On both of those levels it misses. It is a movie to go to because it excellently made, excellently acted and excellently told.
Enjoy!
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4 comments:
This was actually the best movie of 2006. It doesn't necessarily say anything new but it does look at things from a new perspective.
There are scenes of incredible beauty that sent chills down the ol' spine. If we're using the arbitrary 7 as the highest on high for our rating system then I'd say this film deserves more than a 5. Brilliant.
I agree, more than a 5 on that scale. It askes us what we do when our hope is gone and doesn't give us an answer because there is no stock answer to give. I am not sure what the answer it, but it's an amazing, amazing story. One thing that stood out in my mind is the graffiti that says 'Last one to die, turn out the lights'. Literally his subway car is just driving past it at one point in the movie, but that made a very deep impression with me.
10lees
Okay, yes... I was telling 10 that I really had a difficult time bumping this movie down to a 5. My feeling was that the movie was incredibly inovative with the storytelling, it was brilliant and one of the better movies I have seen.
My complaints again are the development of the character. For a movie with so much depth and inovation they really decided to make him blase. Even to the point where he dies in the end. I'm not saying that I wanted them to leave it open for a sequal but I don't see why the "Christ character" was so closely mimed.
I didn't find him to be remotely Christ-like. He was just a man who found something worth living for and that was enough for him. No big spiritual speeches or anything. What he had was enough. I love that he was purely reactionary, hardly any planning.
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