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

I'd read the P. D. James book back in 1993 or so, so I was eager and saw it in its first week. A rare sci-fi adaptation that improved on its source material (I'm looking at you, Never Let Me Go). 2006 was really an outstanding year for films in my wheelhouse. Recall seeing Pan's Labyrinth, The Fall, The Fountain, The Science of Sleep, A Scanner Darkly, Perfume in theaters, I'm not sure I've been to theaters more than 2-3 times in the years since.

Ha, that one and True Lies are the rare action movies where they actually set off a nuclear bomb and, for that matter, that is not the end of the movie.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, April 25, 2018 12:21 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i rewatched this recently for the first time in at least 15 years and i completely fucking forgot a nuclear bomb goes off on an island in the florida keys

it’s a bold choice!

oh there's a bomb at the heart of True Lies alright

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5424b4c0e4b0dd777eb2ebe1/t/543074a6e4b0467040205114/1412461735624/

that's the stuff

on rewatch i thought true lies was a tremendously entertaining collection of action setpieces threaded together by the grossest plot imaginable

loved it when i was a kid ofc

still, v charmed by how ridiculous that scene is

Because if it's not love
Then it's the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb
That will bring us together

on rewatch i thought true lies was a tremendously entertaining collection of action setpieces threaded together by the grossest plot imaginable

loved it when i was a kid ofc

this is my exact memory of seeing it as a kid

with additional "hey is Tom Arnold actually funny or is Cameron et al editing successfully around an ongoing coke frenzy"

lmao otm

haha

I was old enough when I saw True Lies that I found it infuriatingly offensive and beneath Jamie Lee Curtis and esp. Cameron (who at that point was more or less all killer, no filler). I guess it's "fun" in the "hey, it's locker room talk, we're just guys" sense.

sic otm

although it was his sister who was apparently at the center of a large drug operation

enterprising lot, those arnolds

Timely thread revive, since Children of Men has gotten more write-ins than any of the actual choices: 2006's Oscar Nominees

I remember seeing City of Men in a virtually empty theatre perhaps opening weekend and finding it really profoundly moving. I interviewed the director once and told him the movie made me want to be a better person, which is true.

i'm really surprised that ryan still isn't into this!

i don't know what the standards for a movie's intellectual depth are supposed to be, i can't say i have a strong feeling that there's a definite dialectical structure at work in all the world-building elements to this, but i would think it has the rare merit of setting a very clear and concrete idea of hope before the audience. or say, of the role of hope in human life, highlighted in obvious ways by all the sci-fi/speculative premise-setting work that subtracts it from many of the places it would ordinarily be discerned.

the content of that idea is maybe not radical, maybe not far from a version of liberal humanism, but maybe what it does distinctively about some humanist vision is to insist on hope's fragility. even a secular liberal humanism tends to bring pretty high-powered resources to bear on the idea that human values are blah blah blah worth protecting etc., which could underrate their real dependence on life. (i would not be surprised if in the zizek commentary he starts yammering about agamben at some point? not that i know anything about either.)

(the readings above that make the ending perfectly uncertain are right. it's better for kee to make contact because then the question is not, does she make it, it's, can humanity be trusted to do the right thing for/with her, alone with child, protector/messenger/courier dead, when all its hopes and fears converge on her? a boatload of concerned scientists might be a relatively positive sign, but the point of the corniness of the name is that virtually everything onscreen has been some part/stage of 'the human project' and as such is something human beings have typically found all too human ways to fuck up.)

maybe ryan's feeling comes from the way that the movie is very economical in its plotting and dialogue, so it doesn't seem like the ideas get talked out enough. but my sense is that if it does more intellectual work, it must do it by its power of image-making.

there are lots of routes from there to the content of the story (e.g. the opening depiction of a screen-bound society, the contrast between the idealistic die-hard image-maker and the mausoleum-ed thoughtless image-hoarder, the whole range of stuff connectable with the traditional idea of humanity being made in god's image), but it seems like the most deliberate hook must be the lingo for referring to the nodes in the network that can communicate with the human project as 'mirrors'. in which case the ping pong ball trick kind of serves to demonstrate that owen and moore are still capable of being each other's mirror > seeing the humanity in each other > playing amid the despair-inducing reality of the chaotic vulnerable human situation (i.e. trusting the other enough to let the guard down, take the sad face off, and open up to the possibility of failure - jasper's 'pull my finger' joke is like a version of this, and though he has some understanding with syd, syd's meet-and-greet routine shows him to be like jasper but not in that he uses play as a mask for cruelty and exploitation of vulnerability).

it seems like one of the most important lines in the movie is one of kee's, when she's relating how she became pregnant, and she remarks in astonishment that she was/realized she was alive (i.e. alive in a heightened sense, the first time, in the movie's setup, she would have ever felt so). after the baby kicks, i think? that's what i meant above when i said the movie puts an idea before us in a concrete way, and maybe doing so by itself is an accomplishment if it does it clearly. the implication would be that barring changes (human project research etc), she is the only person who knows what it's like to be alive, except insofar as maybe some people still remember. (here, the importance of moore's line about the ringing in the ears, which gets invoked at least three times in the audio.) the line of interpretation from there follows the way she relates to others and the way others relate to her, since one of the most characteristic things about life is how it responds to life. (the manger scene / pregnancy reveal has its traditional meaning, but not untransformed: the one who speaks most authoritatively, i.e. realistically about it is her, talking about how fucked up it is that they cut the cows' nipples off to fit the milking machines on their udders.)

owen's almost immediate reaction at the meeting with the fishes is imprudent and bordering on politically naive (it's hard to think he would agree with himself if allowed to slip back into a more cynical or fatalistic mood), but it seems like the truest response to kee's pregnancy: make it public, i.e. let everyone see (spread the gospel, etc.). maybe because it shows him responding to life by wanting to connect (everyone).

that is all well-put and thought through, but basically it just comes down to ryan being rong

well he's usually so unrong

the content of that idea is maybe not radical, maybe not far from a version of liberal humanism, but maybe what it does distinctively about some humanist vision is to insist on hope's fragility. even a secular liberal humanism tends to bring pretty high-powered resources to bear on the idea that human values are blah blah blah worth protecting etc., which could underrate their real dependence on life.

This is well put and persuasive. I've never been terribly articulate (even in my own mind) about why I'm not convinced by this movie, but yeah it seems to boil down to my feeling that the core idea of hope is so...banal maybe? But yeah maybe that banality is contextualized here in the way you describe in the rest of your post.

well he's usually so unrong

true

I think it's true that hope IS banal, but it's also true that the very act of choosing to have children is an expression of (foolish?) hope in the face of everything we know about the world, and this film pushes that idea to one extreme.

even if children mean nothing to you, think about hw incredibly fucked the world would be with that loss! half the people in my life only really feel alive when they’re investing in their kids

j.'s intuition that Agamben may be relevant here is on point but perhaps even more so Esposito, who I remember has written some things about pregnancy (or the relationship between mother and fetus) as modeling a more positive framework for biopolitics. (I'd need to track down the specifics of that though...and I wouldn't be surprised if it was "problematic," as they say.)

Hope is both banal and foolish (redundant?) and is best expressed in how we bear and care for yet more of our own kind, despite knowing we’re all ultimately doomed. Hope is pushing the rock up the hill with the knowledge that it will never stay on top. Dying on a rowboat, knowing you did a tikkun olam the best you could, that’s all we can hope for.

There’s the off chance our children make many more children and eventually colonize the stars. But we’ll still die out. Hope is dumb and you can’t live without it. Who needs hope? Everyone. Who uses hope as an instrument? Assholes.

I'm watching this for about the tenth time and it's virtually perfect. one thing that always stuck out like a sore thumb is how bad the photoshopping is in the bit where the camera pans across Jasper's awards photos and newspaper clippings.

Virtually perfect otm

Been meaning to watch this with my older one, but I'm not sure she's mature enough for the really fine line it walks between hope and despair.

scrolling through Netflix and paralysed by choice sometimes you just have to... watch CoM again.

that scene that starts with the ping pong ball game in the car!

It always reminds me of Hitchcock: when the camera is at its most self-consciously dramatic is always the point where the story is being pushed on, Cuaron uses arthouse grammar in a mainstream narrative... I'm too pished to work thru why I think this is so major

keep me posted :)

i must have seen this film more than any other film save the Wicker Man by now

one of those movies that seems more dismally prophetic with every passing year

must watch this i guess

nah it's shite

been meaning to rewatch this for like 2 years but i'm always too scared to

before it was released the terrible ad campaign made me think it was going to be a real slog but it is so tense and unrelenting and much more of an action film than i could have imagined.

"Poor fugees—after escaping the worst atrocities and finally making it to England, our government hunts them down like cockroaches"

The Mads are Back podcast's latest episode today talked about this -- understandable that there's plenty about the present that brings it to mind.

Also...

like if I was setting an apocalyptic film in 2027 I might have a guy wear a CUOMO/STABENOW 2016 shirt.

― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Thursday, August 9, 2012 11:28 AM (six years ago)

At this point I'd take that combination in a heartbeat.

The Mads are Back podcast's latest episode today talked about this

Also, fwiw, they called it the best movie of the century so far.

OK, watched this with my older kid. Hadn't seen it in at least a decade, still holds up, still a masterpiece, even more trenchant than before. Case in point: my daughter, during the fighting scenes at the end, asked "do you think this is what it's like in Syria?" And I said ... yeah, probably something just like this.

Clive Owen is a tough actor to get a bead on. Sort of minor dude, breaks out belatedly with "Croupier," ebbs and flows in and out of the spotlight despite being handsome and charismatic and talented. I guess he's in the new Ang Lee movie, which is ... who knows. Especially with Will Smith starring.

this and The Knick are career highlights

A long time ago, Clive Owen came to buy trousers in a shop I worked in and I was too star-struck to serve him.

Daniel Craig also came in but didn't buy anything, although I did wish I'd asked him "What fettle, Geordie?"

and that he's answered "Canny fettle" and then we were married.

Saw this as a free screening at Glasgow Film Festival yesterday morning. I must have watched it 3 or 4 times at home over the years, but this was the first time I'd seen it in the cinema and, though the 35mm print was pretty rough, it was still great to have that extra scale and I loved it as much as ever. Knowing the foreground story so well, it was especially nice to be able to appreciate how much attention to detail there is in the background and around the edges of the action.

j.'s intuition that Agamben may be relevant here is on point but perhaps even more so Esposito, who I remember has written some things about pregnancy (or the relationship between mother and fetus) as modeling a more positive framework for biopolitics. (I'd need to track down the specifics of that though...and I wouldn't be surprised if it was "problematic," as they say.)

― ryan, Thursday, July 12, 2018 9:59 PM (one year ago

haven't looked this up yet but—wouldn't be surprised to see a lotta arendt / natality stuff in there?

I think about this movie all the fucking time as horrible shit sweeps the planet like coronavirus. need to rewatch it.