DVD ADDICT

Dystopian view

CHILDREN OF MEN (UK, 2006, colour), Directed by Alfonso Cuaron and starring Clive Owen, Claire-Hope Ashitey, Julianne Moore, Michael Moore and Pam Ferris. Anamorphic, wide-screen transfer. English and German soundtracks with optional English, German, and Dutch subtitles. Extras include making-of featurette, 'Men Under Attack'. (Zone 2, PAL)

PLALAI FAIFA

By the time Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men opens in 2027, no babies have been born on earth for more than 18 years. No reason is given for this, although there is passing mention of a flu pandemic that took place shortly after our own time, but the lack of children and the emotions they inspire together with the awareness that human history is coming to an end has brought global chaos.

A brief prelude shows that almost all of the world has been laid to ruin by political violence. Only England seems to be functioning at all, but what Cuaron presents here (adapting his screenplay from PD James's novel) is a burned out shell of a country. It is being run by a 1984-like fascist government that has made immigration illegal and routinely rounds up refugees who are crammed into cages and dispatched to holding centres for deportation.

London is full of threatening signs posted by the government: Failing to take a fertility test is a crime. All refugees and suspicious behaviour of any kind must be reported immediately. Quietus, a tastefully packaged euthanasia drug, is advertised everywhere with the slogan, "YOU decide when".

Theo Faron (Owen), a former political activist who has given up on the world and now seems merely to endure his life as a civil servant, is roused from his apathy when he is kidnapped by an underground political group, the Fish, who are fighting for refugee rights. Taken to a secret location, he finds that the local group leader is none other than his ex-wife Julian (Moore). Although their marriage had collapsed in acrimony after the death of their child during the flu pandemic, she trusts him and needs him now.

Kee, a black refugee girl has become pregnant, and needs to be transported to a safe house, and from there to the mysterious Human Project, a secret humanitarian group said to be based at a hidden location in the Azores. Hesitant to become involved, Theo finally, reluctantly, accepts the difficult assignment for payment.

Once Theo has met Kee, Julian, and the nurse who takes care of the girl and they are on their way, Children of Men becomes basically a long, extremely tense and violent chase movie.

The expected reversals, betrayals, and seemingly unsurmountable emergencies all take place, but it isn't the plot that makes this film so riveting. It is the remarkable sense of realism that Cuaron achieves through long takes that feel like documentary footage, and an attention, rare in thrillers, to characterisation and detail.

The technology of Cuaron's 2027 is more advanced in some ways than what we have now, but tired and depleted-looking. There are animated electronic ads running along the side of buses, but the buses themselves are a mess, and vie for the London streets with Bangkok-style tuk-tuks.As the movie opens, the youngest person in the world, an 18-year-old boy, has just been murdered in Brazil. His death unleashes a frenzy of mourning that is clearly patterned on the events that followed the death of Princess Diana. There are scenes, like a tracking shot of the office where Theo works, and one involving a funny-dreadful police officer played by Peter Mullan, where Cuaron seems to be alluding to Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

In one especially striking scene Theo visits Nigel (Danny Huston), an old friend with government influence, for help and finds him surrounded by artwork that he has rescued: Michelangelo's David with one shattered leg replaced with a steel rod (the Pieta had already been smashed), Picasso's Guernica covering an entire wall. Why bother, Theo asks, when everyone will be dead in a hundred years? Nigel's response implies that whatever the situation, certain things must be saved.

Clive Owen, with his world-weary look, is ideal here, and newcomer Claire-Hope Ashitey is excellent as a tough and determined mother-to-be who sees Theo as her deliverer. Most striking of all is Michael Caine as Jasper, an old hippie who smokes good dope, lives in a camouflaged 1960s-style forest Eden, and provides Theo with the sole link with his now-withered idealism.

The only extra is Men Under Attack, a short making-of documentary showing how two of the film's more difficult sequences were shot, including a real stunner, a breathtaking take shot without interruption in a speeding car. I bought my copy of this DVD from amazon.co.uk

Bangkok Post
Friday February 02, 2007