a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  3356 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Children of Men - Discussion Thread

I mentioned in the voting thread that one of the reasons I love this movie is because of the cinematography. The single-shot sequences are absolutely incredible; just pulling some facts from Wikipedia the three longest are 3:19, 4:07, and 6:18 though I think the most powerful one is at the one hour ten minute mark where Theo and Kee are "breaking in" to the refugee camp. The camera following Theo through the winding entrance just put me there with him.

Besides the cinematography in the movie, Children of Men has one of my favorite protagonists in film. (I'm probably going to mess up explaining this, so bear with me.) Theo is the protagonist in a very gun heavy movie who never uses one himself and this carries over from how his past is described by the other characters. I believe it was Julian and Jasper talking to Kee about Theo's past explaining how he was a very active activist and a pacifist as well and Theo keeps that activist/pacifist mindset throughout the movie which is just fantastic. His character has such a staunch contrast to everyone else, I love it.

And just a little fun fact my dog is named after Jasper in the film.





thenewgreen  ·  3356 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I really enjoyed the film for all of the same reasons you cite. The shot at the beginning when the coffee shot blows up is amazing. In my opinion, that long sequence is what brought me in to the film and the rest of it kept me there.

I'd enjoy hearing why people dislike it so much, I can't find any major faults with it. Great acting, interesting concept and visually stunning. I'm sure that the plot has holes and inaccuracies, but if so, they weren't glaringly evident.

kleinbl00, I have no emotional attachment to this film, you'll not be hurting my feelings if you actively hate it. Don't hold back, why does it suck in your opinion?

kleinbl00  ·  3356 days ago  ·  link  ·  

From another, closed forum, December 2006:

    Based on criticisms from below (no debating the merits of a premise if you haven't seen the movie) and recommendations from above (several friends think this movie is the shizzle) and, of course, the overwhelming motivational authority of the Significant Other (who is a doula and two years from being a midwife and naturopath), I'n'I went to see Children of Men on Saturday.

    I wish I could be indulgently condescending as before. Now I'm just viciously bilious. That was the largest, steamingest pile of dung I've sat through in a really long time.

    Big point: So where did it go wrong, as XXXXX was asking? Well, the premise is not "what if a childless world suddenly had a child to look forward to" as bandied about in the trailers. The premise is "What if a hopeless world were given a miracle?" Hardly novel in science fiction; you can take that one back to Burgess and Huxley. The baby is a McGuffin (aside from some truly campy labor pains and requisitely dystopic birth scenes, the baby does jack). The papers are a McGuffin (so if they were just going to waste Julianne Moore to keep K or T or whatever her name was at the house, why did they involve Theo in the first place?). Really, they're setting up a story where miracles go unnoticed.

    Which is fine. Some people are fatalists - the world sucks, humanity sucks, here's a movie about them sucking together. Some people are optimists - the world is basically good, humanity is basically good, here's a movie about things working out because of the fundamental goodness of everything. I myself am not a fatalist (surprise!) but fatalist art can be quite entertaining, moving and insightful.

    Thing is, "Children of Men" takes, as its fundamental tenet, that people will fall all over themselves to take advantage of this miracle. IT THEN FAILS TO DEMONSTRATE HOW OR WHY ANYONE WOULD DO SO. To whit:

    -Theo cares so little about humanity that when Baby Diego dies he edges in and gets a coffee while everyone else stands stunned. He's cynical enough to use Diego's death as an excuse to go home sick (rather than the rather more immediate detonation of a coffee shop he'd been in not thirty seconds previous). Money is mentioned as his motivation three times (quick aside - if his cousin is well enough off to have frickin' Michaelangelo's David in his foyer, why doesn't he just ask his cuz for some scratch?) Yet this person, who starts out as our ultimate cynic, is the dude who schleps around anywhere this baby needs to go, despite any financial reward, despite any external motivation except some murky possible-feelings about his dead ex-wife. Hey, about that cousin - once Theo tells the Fish to get the girl out in the public, they tell him to piss off, then they try to kill him... WHY DOESN'T HE TAKE THE GIRL TO HIS COUSIN? After all, he's well-off enough to have two Picassos and a Michaelangelo in his house. That would be consistent with his thinking. But instead, we're gonna go meet the Human Project, who we find out through painful exposition, no one's even talked to in a few weeks. Awesome.

    -The fishes need this baby to start a revolution so badly that they murder anyone who gets in their way. Yet when they up and start a revolution without it, Big Fish is sitting there inches away from the baby and doesn't even put his grenade launcher down long enough to touch it. Guess it wasn't so important after all. At least he waxes poetic between rounds.

    -The government cares so much about potential children that big ole Orwellian bulletin boards proclaim the trouble you'll get into if you dodge fertility testing. Yet when the 1st Lancers is sitting there pulling a Falludja, tanks and all, they don't do more than pause for a minute to go "cool! A baby! Haven't seen one of those in a while!" before going back to blowing things to bits. No one even considers that said baby might be more better off, more valuable, and more under control inside a tank rather than outside. Which is odd, because Sid pretty much decided the baby was his meal ticket. Are army dudes that fundamentally un-cynical? Then how did the prison camps happen?

    -and hell - how 'bout the arab lady who doesn't even speak English? She damn near went to her grave helping that baby out. So how come nobody else did? If random people are going to care, important people have to care - or at least explain why they don't. Particularly when there are several previously-demonstrated incentives for them to do so.

    Nobody's motivations were clear. Nobody's actions were logical. Nobody did anything that made any sense. The filmmakers were entirely to fond of their garden-variety dystopia to bother exploring it - which is pretty much what social commentary is about.

    -See, here's the thing. If there ain't nobody under 20, and you've had a pandemic, and some nuclear war, and god knows what else, chances are good your population has been reduced by at least 25%. Brutal population reduction doesn't jive with overcrowded, Soylent Green-style refugee camps, no matter how badly you wanna show images reminiscent of Iraq. So if you're gonna show that, I need to know why. I need it to have some sort of meaning in the overall narrative.

    -About that narrative. So... Theo nearly gets blown up, gets some passports, nearly gets blown up, steals a car, nearly gets blown up, sneaks into jail, nearly gets blown up, gets the girl on a boat and dies. Granted, THX-1138 didn't have much going on either but at least it looked cool. And you didn't see everything coming from a mile away. And at least THX had a little rebellion in him. Theo was an even more passive protagonist than Maximus from Gladiator - something I didn't think possible. Never once does he do anything but take the single path of least resistance offered him.

    -And the symbolism. Yes, you're very clever. Your footage looks like Iraqi footage looks like Michaelangelo so let's put a Michaelangelo in it. Neeto. I thought it was kinda cool all the Pink Floyd "Animals" references thrown in there until I realized it was so you could tie it back to Orwell. Do it well it's an homage. Do it poorly it's a rip-off. But the Pig was cool, particularly since

    -This movie would have been much better as a comedy. Michael Caine was clearly going for laughs. Sid was clearly going for laughs. I'm not sure why you would have three stalled cars rolling down a hill ("Pop the clutch!") while being chased by killer terrorists called "fish" unless you intended to have Mr. Bean star in it at some point. See, the thing about "Brazil" is it was actually darkly funny... not funnily dark. What "Children of Men" needed was a Space Herpe or two and maybe a jive-talkin' robot.

    The thing that really pisses me off is this is exactly the genre of feature I want to make... and everyone does it so badly that as soon as someone pulls off something that sucks less than "Freejack" they nominate it for an Oscar. It'll still lose money (because it's a bad movie) and the impression will remain that there's no room for sci fi in Hollywood, despite the fact that it's where Ridley Scott, James Cameron, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and who knows who else got started.

    At least Freejack had James Brown bullets and Buster Poindexter and Mick Jagger as its heavies.

    I did learn one good thing from "Children of Men." Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx totally knocked my socks off and radically altered the way I think about screenwriting. I've been slavish to POV ever since. It was good to see that it can be taken too far - like having your bad guys yell their secret plans so that your access character can hear them through the window around the corner or showing the dramatic hero moment of your supporting actor seen in super-long so that your access character can watch it from the next hill over.

    ...but even then, they couldn't be true to that - the last shot in the movie happens when Theo's already dead.

    Weak.

There were 53 responses to that. I'm still not speaking to two people in the thread. Suffice it to say that things got so heated that I was challenged to come up with a treatment of the source material that solved all of my complaints, if I was so clever... and I did, and it caused a rift in the community with one side agreeing I'd come up with a better approach and the other arguing that Cuaron is God, fuck off.

I've debated the fuck out of this film. I'm completely over it.

Complexity  ·  3355 days ago  ·  link  ·  

This interests me greatly:

    I did learn one good thing from "Children of Men." Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx totally knocked my socks off and radically altered the way I think about screenwriting. I've been slavish to POV ever since.

What did Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx say about POV?

user-inactivated  ·  3356 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thank you for sharing this! I was hoping you'd post something and this was definitely more than I expected. All of those points make sense and I even agree with some, but hell, I still love the movie and I think TNG brings up some good counter arguments which makes me a little less sad after reading all of that.

But seriously though thanks for sharing, despite hating having to read that criticism it is somewhat refreshing seeing a different opinion on the film. I'm going to have to re-watch it considering the points you made.

thenewgreen  ·  3356 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thanks for sharing this, you have some really valid criticisms in there, some of which I noticed while watching the film, but was able to set aside for the sake of enjoyment. Most notable, the fact that they conveniently "yell" there plans loudly enough that he can hear them through the window and the "from the hilltop" "pull my finger" death scene that he can conveniently see.

Also, yes it's true that the whole "Human Project" thing is weak and the cousin would seem a viable option, given his money and status. However, I think the movie works on the level of metaphor better than the level of realism. If you try to think of it in terms of "this could or couldn't" happen, it breaks down pretty quickly.

I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't hold it up as the end all/be all for films. I'd recommend it to someone to see though.

As for his motivation being money and why would he take the baby all the way without it etc... ? I think the answer is his memory of begin a father. He has a paternal intuition that kicks in.

Thanks for sharing this KB, I'll not expect a response as you've clearly put in your time already debating this film. Again, I think you make some valid criticisms.

What did you think of the cinematography?

Also, I too enjoyed the Floyd references. That pig was anything but subtle though.

kleinbl00  ·  3356 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    However, I think the movie works on the level of metaphor better than the level of realism.

You know what that statement means from a practical standpoint, right? "I want this movie to be true even though it's false." It's a movie. It didn't HAVE to be false. If you're making everything up, make it up so that it MATCHES. Yes - it's a metaphor. A pound-the-audience-over-the-head, wallow-in-your-inferiority metaphor, like CRASH or any other "oscar contender" which starts out with the premise "you know, people are assholes."

Thing is: if you're going to make people assholes, they have to act assholish in a way consistent with accepted human behavior or you have to explain why. Children of Men is full of characters that act like assholes because METAPHOR and then act like saints because METAPHOR.

It's the clumsiest, weakest, shittest writer's crutch there is. Write characters, not parables.

    I think the answer is his memory of begin a father. He has a paternal intuition that kicks in.

Do you once see him to do anything to save the baby? Everything Theo does he does because someone else makes him do it.

    What did you think of the cinematography?

Three of my friends are cinematographers. I've sat through so many countless "beautiful" films in which fuckall happens that I've actually started to resent cinematography. You know what's easy? Long fucking shots. You know what's also easy? Frames full of ruin. You know what Children of Men is? Long shots full of ruin. You know what's hard? storytelling.

Friend of mine had a project set up at Disney. McG was slated to direct it. My friend came over to talk to McG while McG was finishing up Terminator:Salvation. McG made him watch little snippets of it and said "What do you think? Doesn't it look awesome!??!??!??"

My friend said "of course it looks awesome, you spent $200 million on it. How's the story?"

My friend got kicked off the project, even though he'd been nursing it for eight years.

mknod  ·  3356 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    It's the clumsiest, weakest, shittest writer's crutch there is. Write characters, not parables.

This was actually my biggest problem with the new series "Black Mirror" in particular with Charlie Brooker's stories. It didn't seem like he cared about the characters he was writing for at all, he just wanted everyone to know "Hey people are jerks heres a universe where they are all jerks, this could happen in real life huh?"

It is just so irritating. The preachiness doesn't even annoy me, it's the idea of "Well we need all of these characters to be as bland as possible so that they can fit into every situation in the viewers mind"

On the other hand, individually in Children of Men, I think Ejiofor, and Owen do a lot of good work in terms of acting (or the editor at least made them look particularly good). There are nuances when the Human Project meet up. They bring something to the characters where they could have easily been very very cardboard.

kleinbl00  ·  3356 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I keep meaning to check it out because everyone says it's so brilliant and then I'm like "yeah... but Charlie Booker is one of the most overly-hyped men in the British Empire." As someone who works in Reality TV, I'm sick of picking apart his take on Reality TV.

mknod  ·  3356 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I really dislike his attitude. He's like the teenager on the bus thinking "All the other people riding with me are just cows and sheeple, only I have ever had an original thought" at least that's how he comes off in everything I've seen.

iammyownrushmore  ·  3356 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    This was actually my biggest problem with the new series "Black Mirror"...

Word, I want to like Black Mirror more than I actually am legally allowed to for this exact reason.

steve  ·  3356 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    It's the clumsiest, weakest, shittest writer's crutch there is. Write characters, not parables.

I'm getting this tattooed somewhere.

thenewgreen  ·  3356 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yep, you've definitely got to have the story first, no doubt about it. I'm working on a new album right now and it's going to have some cool instrumentation, but without the songs it won't work. I'll need to be able to strip back all the synth, horns, strings etc and play the song on a piano or guitar and still think to myself, "yep, this is a good song," or it just doesn't work. I suppose films are the same way, with the "story" being the song. All the rest is window dressing.