p e n g u i n d e v i l

After hearing much about it and then forgetting about it, I saw that Children of Men was ondemand. As I plan on canceling the cable this week, it seemed as good a time as any to finally see this movie. I had heard quite varying things about it, ranging from “a dull endless chase scene” on the low end to to the high end of Kurt’s proclamation of it as one of the ten best films of the year and a Video Sewer all-time top ten! It ended up being nothing like I expected, but certainly not a dull, endless chase scene… I am much more in the sewer camp of this being a fantastic movie. It was just plain great, a movie that I feel like I need to own just to be able to watch it over and over. It’s bleak, very accurate feeling, brilliantly violent (the blood on the lens scene is utterly great in its application and subtly), radically political and so verite you feel like you are right there.

Taking place 20 years in the future where women have been infertile for 20 years and most of civilization has collapsed under the stress of literally no future for mankind, things aren’t really looking up. This future world of Britain is wonderfully presented as a bleak and tired mess of a place, mired in a terrible class divide and a relentless attempt to purge the land of the foreigners.

In 2027 and the reality of no more children seems to have caused the violent collapse of the world… except for the UK, which has fallen into a fascistic police state (yes, more so than now) where the main goal of the government seems to be to brutally evict all non-citizens from the country. Clive Owen is just great in the lead role (and I have no recollection of ever seeing him in anything prior, except for the utterly, horribly, dull and forgettable Shoot ’em Up, so this was a big relief) as a man who is somewhat against his will drawn into an mission for a radical underground faction to escort a woman to the coast . As it turns out, she is pregnant and the goal is to get her to an offshore scientific community that is working to reverse the infertility. Of course, it also turns out that the group that they are with have decided that they want to keep the baby for their own purposes… Hence the chase. Clive and co are in-between all sides as they try to reach this mysterious group who they don’t even know actually exists. Aided by one of my old favorites, Michael Caine in a small and fun role as an old radical who has “retired” to the countryside, they need to continually rethink their plans to make a rendezvous with “The Human Project”. There is violence and betrayal on all sides, and the brilliant cinematography and realism of the film make you feel like you’re right there feeling the dirt and the mistrust.

Children of Men has great direction (and screenplay) by Alfonso Cuarón (who brought us one of the Harry Potter movies and Y tu mamá) and is taken from, of all things, a P D James novel of the same name. This really is one of the best movies I’ve seen this year.