'Children of Men', the new Alfonso Cuaron sci-fi flick

Occurs to me that in making the pregnant woman & baby (Dylan, eventually) unique on earth and thus the hope for all of humanity, the film forces us to look at the world through a parent's eyes. It's basically a movie about having kids in a horribly inhospitable world.

Even as childless viewers, we see man's inhumanity to man as sickeningly absurd, insane folly with astronomical stakes. This where most war and action movies, even the most high-minded ones, tend to trivialize death and suffering by making them seem like a necessary product of something else.

Again, I think this is one of the reasons the film includes so much animal footage. It's easy to feel parental/sentimental about cute animals. By inducing this kind of parental anxiety in the viewer, the film adds weight to the threats and condemnations of its final act.

Walking baby Bazooka out of the the tenement still makes me tear up. There are very few films with the sense of decency and humanity on display here.

Thought the cars were absolutely spot-on. Twenty years from now there'll be the same Renault Megane, Suzuki Swift and a fucking Toyota Corolla, but with rubber crap and sensors and the front and useless little warnings telling you an "impact" is imminent that flash up on the windscreen.

http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Ss/0206634/D001_00234.jpg

arguments upthread about the religious symbolism seem bunk for the most part, though the more i chew on it the more they might be true, at least a *little* bit (this isn't frickin 'stephen king's the stand' by any means which i watched on sci-fi channel last night thinking it was a bio-disaster film until i realized it was basically a 'left behind' movie) when i read on imdb where the title comes from:

"Lord, thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to another. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made: thou art God from everlasting, and world without end. Thou turnest man to destruction: again thou sayest, Come again, ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday: Seeing that is past as a watch in the night."

speaking of dystopic-apocalypto films, has anyone read this book? i really want to check it out -- hopefully a library near me has it -- a bit out of my range just now:
http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Apocalyptic-Cinema-Charles-Mitchell/dp/0313315272

can't see these as clearly but one of the things i really look forward to in re-watchin it is absorbing the details better:

http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Ss/0206634/00189.jpg_rgb.jpg

It's certainly worth the Amazon used book price.

That has made me less excited to see a movie that I was looking forward too.

And damm it now I want to go and listen to Itchy Woooooooo all afternoon.

this is a good point. I had a child six months ago and that's partly why this movie was so affecting to me, absolutely. Also, the birth scene in this is terrifyingly realistic and I can't figure out how they did it. cgi?

I AM ABOUT TO TYPE A SPOILER RIGHT NOW ALERT MESSAGE!!!!!

so what's the deal, they get the girl's baby to safety, so "the plan" for redeveloping the population then is to bottleneck the entire human species through it? wouldn't that ultimately mung-ify us all? better than nothing, is that what we're supposed to accept?

You know who was great? Peter Mullan as Syd, the Bexhill guard.

so what's the deal, they get the girl's baby to safety, so "the plan" for redeveloping the population then is to bottleneck the entire human species through it? wouldn't that ultimately mung-ify us all? better than nothing, is that what we're supposed to accept?

We know nothing about "the plan" other than, you know, the first child in 18 years has been born and maybe that would be a good place to poke around for a solution. Anything beyond that is stuff you're making up in your own mind.

I think it speaks well for Children of Men that nearly every major criticism I've read is due to either misunderstanding or imposing unnecessary conditions from the outside.

Totally didn't notice that that was Peter Mullan, which increases my regard for him.

Yeah, it was the oposite of this.

It's worth noting that we don't even know that this is the first child in 18 years... it's never made clear exactly what the human project is, and I sort of thought that there might be more than just one mother and baby.

cat clawing onto clive owen's leg = AWESOMENESS

If there's one thing I'd criticize about this otherwise wonderful movie, it's that the kitten was criminally underutilized.

p.s., the sci-fi parody linked to by Fluffy Bear etc upthread really is very funny.

when they were smoking w33d the first time and telling jokes about scientists munching stork.