The other night, Tara and I watched a really fucking great movie. It was called "Children Of Men." You've almost certainly heard nothing about it; for some reason the studios haven't tried to sell tickets to it at all. They're almost certain to allow the DVD release to go equally unremarked. This despite the critics loving the holy hell out of it; the guys at CHUD.com called it "a miracle," which you may realize as an achievement of significant magnitude on its own merits.
Back up a bit.
Usually, when I watch a movie, my first impression is all that counts; if I'm gonna write about it, I will just let fly, keys clicking away as the credits roll.
Every once in a while, there's a movie that I need time to 'digest,' so to speak. Strange Days was one of these when it came out; it took me a few days to really finish thinking through all of the things that made it such a damn effective movie.
Children of Men was one of those.
But because I want to let you guys experience it the same way I did, I'm not gonna reveal anything you couldn't have found out in the ads. This is not to be an "I've seen it and you haven't, so neener" jerk, but seriously because I think seeing this particular movie without the preconceptions driven by my blathering might make for a better viewing experience.
To begin:
First off, the cinematography in this movie is simply artwork, in its purest form. There are several VERY long sequences with no, or few, cuts, meaning the camera crew is running right along with the actors as they move through the sets. This is something I wish more directors would go back to. When you cut a sequence into a bunch of separate shots and then tie them together in an editing room, it makes your carefully scripted action sequence seem like a bunch of clever editing tricks. When you go through a five- or ten-minute gunfight, during which the camera gets blood on the lens which then STAYS through the whole sequence, it gives you the kind of in-your-face immersion and immediacy you used to see from really, really good combat correspondents, like maybe during World War Two. Whatever tricks they used to make this happen, I neither know nor care; it works on every level.
Secondly, the set management and stage direction is nearly goddamn miraculous. Even though this is an action movie - make no mistake about that - I actually paused the movie on THREE SEPARATE OCCASIONS to comment to Tara about just how goddamned amazing the sets and cinematography was. That has happened, to my knowledge, never.
I have never paused a movie for three separate comments about the same thing. Not even for movies with really utterly gorgeous cinematography, like House Of Flying Daggers.
Thirdly, the director (Alfonso Cuaron, who also co-wrote the screenplay,) does something you only see with the very greatest directors: he knows his shot before he films it. Now, every director has SOME idea what the finished product is going to look like, but it's only the really magnificent filmmakers who can hold a shot in their head so clearly that when filmed it looks inevitable, as though it could never have been any other way. Kubrick; Miyazaki (animation doesn't matter. Watch Mononoke-Hime and tell me he's not a genius;) Ridley Scott; Clint Eastwood (a far better director, I think, than an actor - although no slouch at either.)
Cuaron achieves this nirvana of filmmaking with an almost breathless ease; even if it took hundreds of takes to commit each shot in its final version, you'd never know it from the finished product. Each scene looks as though it worked perfectly on the very first try. This is a huge factor; it helps immersion, because the tone of the film doesn't change. Watch a movie by a lesser, but still good director, very carefully, and you will know what I mean. The shots individually may be flawless, but their TONE, their flavor, changes from shot to shot, and as such, so does the film; it leaves the viewer unable to completely immerse themselves in the film, as each transition jars a bit more at their suspension of disbelief.
I was actually surprised by this; Cuaron's previous films have been limited, and not the kinds of projects you'd think would lead to something like this. (Harry Potter 3? Y Tu Mama Tambien? A Little Princess?) Not a resume that would lead you to expect the kind of flamboyant, almost violent excellence he unexpectedly gifted us with in this film.
The cast performed well, with Clive Owen at last taking a lead role, and absolutely running the hell away with it. At no point is his portrayal of Theo even the slightest bit inconsistent; every nuance of the character is evoked, something other actors strive for and usually fail to achieve. Seriously, if I thought the Oscars meant a tinker's damn any more, I would say it was Oscar-worthy, but since they're not, I'm stuck with "utterly brilliant."
Michael Caine was quite amusing as an aging stoner hippie - not the sort of thing you expect, but fun. The real surprise was film newcomer Claire-Hope Ashitey, who in only her second film, was able to match Clive Owen every step of the way, never quite stealing the show, but certainly making a serious mark, and turning in a performance credible in an actress of far greater experience. I hope to see quite a bit more of her in films; she's very impressive.
Now. As I said, I'm not going to tell you very much about the plot; it's better if you see it for yourself, and pay attention. It is a fast-paced movie, and for that reason, things which are important fly by like they would in real life, rather than being given the "Hollywood treatment" of a five-second closeup of an otherwise innocuous-seeming object, so the writer and director can hold your hand and make VERY GODDAMN SURE YOU KNOW THIS WILL BE ON THE QUIZ LATER.
But it is brilliant, in every way. The situation - A.D. 2027, 18 years after humanity for reasons unknown and unexplained suddenly became infertile - is explained in tidbits through background dialog, rather than by the typical devices of long expository speeches to "the new guy," or drawn-out pre-title background babble that no-one can squint finely enough to read. It's very smoothly done, and actually seems like the sort of thing that might really happen, rather than jarring you out of the story.
Theo - Owen's character - is a former activist and now petty bureaucrat who is approached by his ex-wife with a request for him to procure travel papers for persons unknown. Theo goes along, mostly because she asked him to, and finds himself reeled helplessly into an ever-deteriorating situation whose outcome may be The Fate Of All Mankind.
I realize it sounds double-plus-extra melodramatic, put that way; but it's so carefully and skillfully done that at no time as a viewer will you go "Bullshit!" as happens so often with lesser films.
I want to state at this point that this is not a movie for children. It is frequently violent; but at no point does it cross the line into showing violence merely for its own purpose. Each violent act in the movie serves some portion of the plot.
I also want to say that you will not have a tough time putting the politics aside from the viewing experience. There's a good bit of anti-war stuff in there; but instead of the norm, which is to rant at length about evil warmongers, the political things in the film again take place in the background. They merely serve as a backdrop for the situation, and highlight the reasons the society of the film turned the way it did; rather than preaching to the viewer, it takes a higher road without compromising its principles.
I appreciate this greatly in a political film, especially since I almost always, as a libertarian, disagree with the political claptrap spewed by either side.
As your reward for watching this, you are treated not only to a thoughtful, hopeful ending - better, to my taste, by far than the succession of either "down" or "happy" endings Hollywood is famed for producing; you will be treated to, in the last 15 minutes of the film, one of the simplest, most breathtaking sequences of film ever recorded in a movie studio, by any director, anywhere, ever.
I mean that; the last 15 minutes of this film is so utterly striking in every way that even if you loathe - which I cannot even imagine - the rest of the film in its entirety, the last sequence is so profound and moving that it would redeem the entire film at a stroke.
This film is absolutely, stunningly, a work of genius. My hat is off to the cast, crew, writers, and director; across the board, they have in my opinion made the most striking film of 2006, and perhaps of this decade.
As a final note: this is an adaptation of the novel by P. D. James. I haven't read it, but the sites I've read about it claim that the movie makes significant departures from the book. I don't care. This is one of the maybe 15 best movies I've ever seen; frankly, I don't believe for one second that it could have been improved in any significant way by slavish devotion to the book.
Oh, and here's the trailer. Just so you can get that appetite even more worked up.
Go watch it. You do yourself a great disservice indeed if you don't.
