Last night, I saw Children of Men and thought it was the most amazing movie I've seen in a long time. If I had done a "Best of 2006" movie list, I'd need to rewrite it and put this movie way on top. I found Children a perfect blend of exciting, moving and thought provoking.
It is the anti-Tony Scott movie. The tension comes from characters and drama, not frenetic editing and contrived situations. (In fact, there are some extraordinarily long, unbroken shots that are getting a lot of attention.)
Bits of the movie rang very true for me and I identified with them.
The vision of the future, grimy buses adorned with video displays, seemed real and compelling. It's a dark dystopic near future that feels real and not comic bookish, like the The Matrix or Blade Runner.
The kitchen table meeting where activists argue their personal agendas, while blindly ignoring the compelling morality and need of the overall situation, is a situation I've seen dozens of times.
The scenes in the Homeland Security internment camp were chilling, and made me wonder how close Guantanamo Bay might be to one of these.
I think the movie may have something to do with hope, or the lack thereof. Is there anything more hopeless than the knowledge that your species is doomed? The people without hope act in despicable ways; those with hope act heroically.
I'm a little irritated that the marketing campaign was so bad (I saw the trailers and put it immediately on my "no way" list). If I cared about Oscar awards, I'd be a lot irritated this movie wasn't better recognized.
P.S. Super bonus props for featuring a song off this King Crimson album, which, I bought on CD just this past month.
Post new comment