In Continuum.

Children Of Men



The big three during this year's Oscars: Babel, Pan's Labyrinth and Children of Men. Reason being, all three movies were directed by Mexican directors Alejandro González Iñárritu, Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón respectively. All the attentions were all these three directors because it was the first time in Oscary history, to have the films made by three Mexican directors to be nominated in the same year for their separate films. And of course, due to the hype around the films and being the movie freak that I am, I was desperate to watch all three films. Besides, there were raving reviews about all three of them, so why not?

Babel was a gigantic disappointment. The only thing worse than a bad movie is a disappointing one, and this movie gave justice to that statement. A brief review here from me to the people who have yet to watch this. Babel is the last part of a sort of trilogy which began with Amores Perros and 21 Grams. Different movies, different stories, different characters, but same themes. I have yet to watch Amores Perros, but I am a huge fan of 21 Grams. With the reviews online about Babel, I was more than just excited to catch it in January. And I was rather disappointed by the film because it felt a little too long to be telling a simple story. I felt the messages didn't come through as well as 21 Grams, and to be honest I wasn't able to engage myself in the story at all.

Pan's Labyrinth was yet another disappointment because of all the perfect reviews online. By perfect I mean a ten upon ten review from all around, and everybody was crazy about it. So I watched the movie and - like Babel - was really disappointed as well. I understand that the movie was never meant to be a full-blown, pure fantasy movie because of the war elements injected into the story, and how the director chose the fantasy elements only as a supplementary aid to the plot and themes itself. But the three tasks that the main actress was supposed to go through were poorly laid out before the audience I felt, and between the tasks there weren't any logical explanations as to their relations, nor were there any sense involved in some of the scenes. I felt the fantasy and war elements of the movie canceled each other out and thus, was greatly compromised. Besides, I thought the acting of the actress playing Ofelia was awfully poor. She didn't look scared enough during the meeting with the monsters, nor did she look terrified enough when her mother died. Basically, just a sub-standard performance from all around. A rather bland movie experience.

Luckily, there is Children of Men. So everybody who shares the same sentiments with me as the two movies above should rejoice in Alfonso Cuarón's great efforts in this movie. I won't say this movie blew me away to be honest, but it was an interesting take on the future, and Alfonso Cuarón successfully transported us into that imaginary world of 2027. His efforts were subtle and yet powerful, all shown through the gritty setup and the camera work, brilliantly played out on screen.

Children of Men tells of the world in the future. In 2027, the youngest human being was shot outside a bar after his refusal to sign an autograph. The youngest person in the world was 18 years old when he died, and the news shocked the world - for no child has been born for the past 18 years, and the last days of the human race were at hand. No hopes in the streets on London where the story is set, and the world sank into chaos and madness.

But amidst the lack of hope, the protagonist Theo - was contacted by his ex-wife Julian and discovered that the 'terrorist' organization headed by her found a girl named Kee, who was miraculously pregnant. So the whole story basically revolves around trying to get the girl out of harm's way into a scientific research group called the Human Project, where the baby could be taken care of and the hope of mankind can be rekindled.

Alfonso Cuarón tells the story at a leisurely yet tight pace, with every scene carefully planned out and literally choreographed. There are scenes which will move you to the edge of your seats, so tensed that you start to clench your fist and sweat in your palms. For example, the scene when the five passengers meet a bunch of rebels in the forest was brilliantly shot, and not to mention the escape of Theo and Kee from the terrorists when their car couldn't be started. Those were very tensed scenes, and kudos to Alfonso Cuarón for bringing that across so effectively.

Now, the cinematography. The cinematographers were clearly robbed for this year's Oscars. I didn't understand why my friends over in the States were so frustrated with that category until I saw this movie myself. Personally, I have never seen a movie which uses extremely long single-take shots so many times in a movie. Basically, a one-take shot would mean a single shot on the subject in the frame, and the scene will happen without any forms of editing while the actors are still playing out their roles and the actions happening. One of these scenes lasted for a whooping twelve minutes, and I can only imagine the amount of planning and choreography involved in such a scene. I swear, this is definitely some kind of a break through in cinematography and like I said, blindly robbed.

This is not a happy movie, despite the emphasis on hope. This movie is bleak, because it tells us that the future is not a very pleasant place to live in, to look forward to. Everything from the tone of the film, to the screenplay and down to the texture of the film tells us that the story is not a happy one. But amidst unhappiness, there is a little light of hope always, even till the very end when the ending is sort of ambiguous and unknown. We don't exactly know what happens at the very end, or if their efforts throughout the movie was fruitful. But I guess the main point of the movie was to tell us to have hope, because without hope there is zilch - nothing.

This movie is probably the redeeming movie out of the three Mexican-made films. Like I said, I wasn't blown away by the film, but it intrigued me from the beginning till the end, and I must say that it must be one of the best films of 2006. Though not HIGHLY recommended, do check it out if you have the time.