― chap who would dare to contain two ingredients. Tea and bags. (chap), Saturday, 30 September 2006 19:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 30 September 2006 20:01 (seventeen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 30 September 2006 20:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Saturday, 30 September 2006 20:36 (seventeen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 30 September 2006 20:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― sean gramophone (Sean M), Saturday, 30 September 2006 23:20 (seventeen years ago) link
― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Sunday, 1 October 2006 23:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― derrick (derrick), Monday, 2 October 2006 05:08 (seventeen years ago) link
It was just all too realistic, and that was what made it terrifying. (Ha ha, there was a review in Country Life that said that the London of the film was jarringly unlike real London - bloody hell, what London do you live in? Probably the posh parklike behind the gates at Admiralty Arch.) It seemed so terrifyingly... normal.
I liked the fact that the infertility was relatively unexplained, that was what kind of made it different than The Handmaid's Tale. It just... happened, and humanity was left to deal with it. Though I would have liked to see more about how the resulting gender conflict would actually have been resolved. With the genders relieved of the ability for procreation, would the balance of power changed? Would the world have stumbled towards equality (probably not, in such a dystopia) or would one gender have risen up and attempted to destroy the other? That would have been as interesting to me as the class war and "Fugee" conflicts.
I thought the Christian symbolism was a bit heavy-handed, though. (I mean, christ, the revelation in a sodding stable? Why not throw in a manger, while you're at it. And did every woman on the side of good have to be called a variant of Mary? It would have been too obvious to make the pregnant girl a Mary, I suppose.) Surprised you didn't catch that, Emsk.
But all in all, very good. Very thought-provoking, a film you really come out of feeling dazed and terrified, and you see London not quite the same way afterwards. "Britain Soliders On" - terrifying, but at least the idea that our Island/Blitz mentality would keep us soldiering on.
― Virginia Plainsong (kate), Monday, 2 October 2006 08:45 (seventeen years ago) link
yes! and the fact that the details of the horrible catastrophes of the recent past that left the world in the state it's in are very vague and suggested (did i imagine an image of an a-bomb going off somewhere in the film, on the tv news?) is very effective too - maybe there was no great huge calamity? maybe this is just the direction we are currently leading towards?
― i am not a nugget (stevie), Monday, 2 October 2006 08:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― Virginia Plainsong (kate), Monday, 2 October 2006 08:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― chap who would dare to contain two ingredients. Tea and bags. (chap), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:02 (seventeen years ago) link
OTM
― i am not a nugget (stevie), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:03 (seventeen years ago) link
oh, was it a stable? i just thought it was a derelict building.
Why not throw in a manger, while you're at it. And did every woman on the side of good have to be called a variant of Mary? It would have been too obvious to make the pregnant girl a Mary, I suppose.) Surprised you didn't catch that, Emsk.
ki?
― emsk ( emsk), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:15 (seventeen years ago) link
I don't get this, you seem to be saying that a truce of fucking is the only thing holding back the Council of Men and Council Of Women from outright war? That's a pretty literal interpretation of the battle of the sexes, I think (also it implies a lack of hope, which by definition anyone who hasn't taken their Quietus has some of).
And did every woman on the side of good have to be called a variant of Mary?
But.. they aren't. Kee isn't, and Julian isn't, and Miriam and Marichka are quite obscure variants, I think you're reading more into this than there is.
"Britain Soliders On" - terrifying, but at least the idea that our Island/Blitz mentality would keep us soldiering on.
Well yeah, this seems to sit in an awkward and interesting way with her Tory nature. On the one hand clearly Clamping Down on Immigration works, and the story isn't kind to people opposed to same, but the film, possibly just by having an person you can empathise with playing Kee, seems to run against it. People who've read the book, what's it like?
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:29 (seventeen years ago) link
OK, a milking shed, not a stable, but still. It was a very overt nativity reference.
― Virginia Plainsong (kate), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― emsk ( emsk), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:36 (seventeen years ago) link
― Virginia Plainsong (kate), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― emsk ( emsk), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:43 (seventeen years ago) link
― Virginia Plainsong (kate), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― Virginia Plainsong (kate), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:46 (seventeen years ago) link
You don't have to be Christian to realise why it's a good idea to have a cease-fire around the first baby in 18 years.
The problem with Christians is that they don't believe that Athiests can feel awe at things.
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:49 (seventeen years ago) link
― emsk ( emsk), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:49 (seventeen years ago) link
― emsk ( emsk), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:50 (seventeen years ago) link
x-post
― Virginia Plainsong (kate), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― chap who would dare to contain two ingredients. Tea and bags. (chap), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:53 (seventeen years ago) link
― emsk ( emsk), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:55 (seventeen years ago) link
!
― sean gramophone (Sean M), Monday, 2 October 2006 09:55 (seventeen years ago) link
I also loved this movie for all the reasons stated above, but it must be said that this is some of the best actual nuts-and-bolts filmmaking I have seen in a long time. Some incredibly memorable images - the explosions going off in the distance through the fog as Theo and Ki sit in the rowboat were so haunting. And this should be the number one film cited in any defense of CGI work, which I usually hate with a passion.
― Tiki Theater Xymposium (Bent Over at the Arclight), Monday, 2 October 2006 10:07 (seventeen years ago) link
was it that cheesy though? there were cheesier bits. i dunno, i didn't leave with much of a feeling of hope, even once she'd been picked up. who are these human project people? they might be just as bad as the fish. or they might just be useless.
It had me in tears in points. I know I don't see films as often as other people, so they tend to affect me more.
i dunno if it's anything to do with seeing less films... i see quite a lot and i was in tears pretty much the whole way through! i think it's just that it's an incredibly well-made, timely, insightful, powerful film that chimes with modern fears and is realistic enough to upset us in a non-escapist way.
― emsk ( emsk), Monday, 2 October 2006 10:25 (seventeen years ago) link
― Virginia Plainsong (kate), Monday, 2 October 2006 10:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Monday, 2 October 2006 10:55 (seventeen years ago) link
― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Monday, 2 October 2006 11:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Monday, 2 October 2006 11:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Monday, 2 October 2006 11:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― emsk ( emsk), Monday, 2 October 2006 11:23 (seventeen years ago) link
xpost - soldiers be following orders.
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 2 October 2006 11:26 (seventeen years ago) link
also it's not been said yet how totally hott Owen is in this.
― jed_ (jed), Monday, 2 October 2006 11:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Monday, 2 October 2006 11:30 (seventeen years ago) link
Err, yeah. I didn't want to be the one to mention it, though. I was watching the whole film going "err, is it me, or is Clive Owen really hott in this? Coz I didn't think he was all that in King Arthur, but errr, hottt."
x-post yes, I laughed out loud at the Banksy in the Tate. (And it was the Tate for that sequence, weirdly, even though the outside was Battersea Power Station.)
― Virginia Plainsong (kate), Monday, 2 October 2006 11:33 (seventeen years ago) link
(xposted to fuckery :)
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 2 October 2006 11:36 (seventeen years ago) link
― Virginia Plainsong (kate), Monday, 2 October 2006 11:37 (seventeen years ago) link
xpost kate - the soldiers were just fighting to suppress the fishes; the fishes had blasted into bexhill to get the baby in order to lend mystical authority to the anti-government/pro-immigrant uprising they wanted to trigger; it turned out that the blast triggered the uprising, which i'm not sure they were counting on... anyway i think the only people "fighting" over the baby were the fishes?
― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Monday, 2 October 2006 11:39 (seventeen years ago) link
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 2 October 2006 11:40 (seventeen years ago) link
xp
― jed_ (jed), Monday, 2 October 2006 11:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― Virginia Plainsong (kate), Monday, 2 October 2006 11:45 (seventeen years ago) link
"i just [pops pill] don't think about it"
― jed_ (jed), Monday, 2 October 2006 11:47 (seventeen years ago) link
― chap who would dare to contain two ingredients. Tea and bags. (chap), Monday, 2 October 2006 12:07 (seventeen years ago) link
At this point it's hard for me to read an article like that and muster the sense of panic she is trying to evoke. The future looks bleak for humanity, but it would be poetic justice that if we wiped ourselves out before we could finish making the world uninhabitable for most other species.
― beard papa, Sunday, 21 March 2021 00:07 (three years ago) link
This film...
London 2027 in Children of Men is a functional society - you still get a coffee, go to work on the bus, put a bet on the dogs, go to the pub - but it’s not one you’d want to live in. pic.twitter.com/3T81bCyl68— Flying_Rodent (@flying_rodent) November 3, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 3 November 2022 12:47 (one year ago) link
"Cuarón was inspired by the 20th-century film theorist André Bazin, for whom fast editing diminishes a scene “from something real into something imaginary”."
Like this...doesn't sound right? Bazin was writing (and died) before the really long takes became a thing later in the 60s and then 70s Euro film? And he was more for backing a kind of realism in filmmaking (from my fuzzy memory).
― xyzzzz__, Monday, August 3, 2020 6:05 AM (two years ago)
yeah, my fuzzy memory aligns with yours ... it would probably be more accurate to say that Cuaron was inspired by 60s/70s filmmakers whose long takes were partially a response to the theories of Bazin (e.g. the Godard traffic jam scene in Weekend)
― sarahell, Thursday, 3 November 2022 16:13 (one year ago) link
Bazin did celebrate long takes, but he was probably thinking about "master shots" rather than the sometimes showy takes of later filmmakers. It wasn't the length of the take or the impressive camera movements that was important to him:
I would even say that Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope could just as easily have been edited in classical fashion, whatever artistic importance one may legitimately attach to his approach. On the other hand, it would be unthinkable for the famous seal-hunting scene in Nanook of the North not to show us, in the same composition, the hunter, the hole in the ice and the seal.
― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 3 November 2022 16:53 (one year ago) link
All the news about Manston has had me thinking about the Bexhill scenes in CoM over the last few days.
― brain (krakow), Thursday, 3 November 2022 22:56 (one year ago) link
Yup
― Urbandn hope all ye who enter here (dog latin), Friday, 4 November 2022 01:00 (one year ago) link
Saw this for the first time last night. I'm afraid, when everyone stops fighting as he carries the baby out of the building, I was unable to get this bit from The Day Today "War" out of my head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRjtVdWvNzY
― Maggot Bairn (Tom D.), Friday, 7 April 2023 17:43 (eleven months ago) link