There must be something in the water in Mexico these days, aside from whatever it is that gives tourists dysentery.
Three of the past year’s most interesting films were directed by Mexican artists: Alejandro González Iñárritu’s devastating ensemble drama Babel, Guillermo del Toro’s frightening adult fairy tale Pan’s Labyrinth and Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men.
Children of Men is the last of the three films to receive theatrical release, and the only one that was financed and produced outside of Mexico. Cuarón’s apocalyptic science fiction movie is also arguably the best work to come from this group of directors—and, by extension, the finest film
of 2006.
Like all great works of the sci-fi genre, Children of Men is not about a fantastical future divorced from current reality, but about the state of our society today. Set in a fictionalized Britain of
2027, humans are no longer able to reproduce. All other countries have devolved into anarchist states,
and all immigrants within England are either deported or banished to internment camps. Children of Men is a movie about timely and pertinent political issues including immigration laws, misdirected activism and apathetic attitudes toward international affairs.
The script (credited to five writers and based on the novel by P.D. James) is tight and expertly written, and for that reason cannot be discussed here without giving away too much. Children of Men should be experienced with little to no advance knowledge of the plot, allowing the work of a master storyteller to carefully manipulate his audience until the final frame. Yet despite all the intellectual discourse, Children of Men is never preachy or pretentious. The film uses the narrative drive of a highspeed action movie, and rather than resorting to Matrix-esque sermonizing or gratuitous amounts of exposition, all of the heady information is fed to the audience through briefly glimpsed news reports, photographs, background details and throw-away lines of dialogue.
The film never discloses why humans have become infertile or how society has so rapidly deteriorated, because that’s not truly important; instead of getting lost in the banal mythology of
his creation (see: George Lucas), Cuarón simply finds what interests him in the material and wraps it around a truly thrilling chase picture. Cuarón has steadily been building an impressive body of work since the mid-’90s, alternating between personal, lowbudget comedies made with his brother Carlos in Mexico and big budget Hollywood adaptations of novels such as Great Expectations, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
One constant in his work is the great care and skill he takes in shooting his films, collaborating with cinematographer and long-time friend Emmanuel Lubezki. Children of Men may contain the pair’s finest work to date. They use the same shooting style here as they did in Y Tu Mamá
También, predominantly relying on long handheld takes with very little editing.
Although this approach was effective in the earlier film, that movie was a low-key character piece, not a fast-paced thriller. Here, entire car chases and action scenes are staged within a single shot. The
result is both technically stunning and thrillingly effective. The long shots enhance the suspense of these sequences without relying on the carefully choreographed editing devised by Hitchcock and used
endlessly ever since.
If Children of Men has a flaw, it’s the movie’s fidelity to the conventions of the thriller genre. Star Clive Owen’s wise-cracking skeptic turned caring human being is a journey that has been seen many times before, and occasionally the themes and messages of the film take a backseat to the unrelenting forward motion of the narrative. But these are minor quibbles.
One thing that is unquestionably above criticism is the acting, which is uniformly sound. Clive Owen can occasionally be accused of hiding behind his sarcastic swagger and sleepwalking his way through
roles, but here, he gives a fully convincing performance. While the predictably dependable Julianne Moore, Michael Caine and Peter Mullan are also praiseworthy, the true standouts of the cast are relatively unknown character actors.
Chiwetel Ejiofor portrays a touchingly human antagonist, Pam Ferris breathes life into a potentially dreary religious midwife and, most impressively, Claire-Hope Ashitey—appearing in just her second feature film—succeeds irably in the difficult role of the first woman to become pregnant in 25 years.
Simply stated, Children of Men is a masterful film by a great director, marking Cuarón’s most complete and successful work to date. It lives up to the highest expectations for a Hollywood movie, providing non-stop entertainment without ever insulting the intelligence of its audience.
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