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A very powerful film. In some ways a plea for us to stop the madness and realize how precious life is.

Posted by sjb (A) on January 11, 2007 at 17:29:55

In Reply to: Review: Children of Men, after due consideration. posted by Audiophilander on January 10, 2007 at 14:01:43:

I disagree pretty strongly about a plausible explanation for the infertility being needed to anchor the movie's plot.

I got the strong impresssion that the people in the movie don't really know... that so many of the potential catastrophe's hanging over our heads began to happen that it could have been any one or a combination of them.

The joke Michael Caine told early on about the guy proclaiming that he had a plausible theory for the infertility was a big clue that the characters in the film didn't really know.

Also the newspaper headlines in the room where Julainne Moore was first talking to Clive Owen were full of thengs like "Nuclear Fallout Devastates Africa" and another mention of nuclear holocaust in Kazakstan and another "Nuclear Fallout Devastates ... (couldn't make out the country or region)" Then there was a headline that said 150,000 die after leakage (clearly NOT a reference to Olestra).

Also, the burning animals and the unfettered pollution from all the factories showed that the world (or at least their world) had become a - much worse than it is now - toxic mess. Then there was the mention of the flu pandemic. It just seems as thouigh so many systems were breaking down that human female fertility was one of them.

There was also the tv screen that showed the worlds' devastation and showed a mushroom cloud over NYC.

So there were lots of things that COULD have caused it and clearly quite a few years of absolute chaos before and after that point so in my opinion not knowing for sure what it was took absolutely nothing away from the film. In fact I think it put us on a level playing field with the characters which added to the depth and feeling in the film.

In terms of the official reaction to the infertility... except for one clue we weren't shown any of that... it simply wasn't part of the story. The clue was a couple of shots of electronic signs on the London streets that said - to paraphrase - "Not getting fertility tested is a crime" So clearly the official response was one of great concern.

As for Cuaron being anti-science and multi-culturalism. Hogwash. I think you're letting your political views (and perhaps a hyper-senstivity to anything that MIGHT signal something in opposition to them) color the lens of perception thru which you watched this film.

There was not a single moment of that film that was anti-science (though there were many subtle and not so subtle references to being vicitims of technologies used for bad purposes) and the whole film was a paean - of sorts - to multiculturalism.

As a side note I would think you'd applaud the view of the string of newspaper clippings at Michael Caines house when we first get there. The ones that point to our invasion of Iraq as the first fatal step in on the road to where the planet was when the movie started.

Don't piss on my shoe and tell me it's raining.

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