Zhibo Yang
Professor Collins-Porter
11/18/2015
FILM 101
Children of Men Children of Men, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, is a science fiction thriller film in 2006. After watching it, I start to think deeply because this film contains much information about political statements, philosophy, and religions. Children of Men tells the story of Theo Faron, one of the many bureaucrats from the energy department in UK. He seems like a common citizen, but does something uncommon later. In fact, the first thirty minutes is not quite interesting for me, but things has changed significantly after Julian is killed by shot. Later, Theo becomes a hero by rescuing Kee’s child, the child of miracle. This film has many advanced and significant aspects on many perspectives. So this paper is going to analyze the unique features in it.
Narrative
The story is located at the United Kingdom in 2027. At that time, human beings have experienced 18 years of infertility. Children of Men is a film with realistic narrative, because the story runs chronologically. And it follows the classic five-part narrative structure. We can clearly recognize the introduction: Theo hears the news about the death of baby Diego. Conflict and obstacles are throughout the story that Theo finds out Luke’s plan and helps Kee escape to “The Tomorrow”. Later climax comes with the ceasing fire of government army and revolt when they see Kee’s kid. And by the end of the film, we can hear kids laughing, which leaves us a hope that human beings can continue on. Meanwhile, this film contains many nondiegetic elements, which always attracts me and let me pause and investigate. At the beginning, the death of baby Diego comes from the news report on TV, which also introduces the background of the film. So we can easily understand what happens in the film without too much additional explanations from our main characters. Also, when Theo visits Jasper for the first time, there is a shot recording some photos and paperwork of Jasper. These things include: a family photo of Theo, Julian, and their little kid, Dylan, many slogans against war in Iraq, award of political cartoonist of the year for Jasper, news on infertility, and news about MI5 deny torture of photojournalist, who is Jasper’s wife. This scene tells audience tremendous information besides our main story, which completely shows audience a broad picture of the story and the background.
Cinematography and Editing By using many impressive long takes, Alfonso brings the audience to a sense of reality of London in 2027. These long takes make this film have the feeling of a documentary. Also, Alfonso uses only a few cuts, which makes the scene more effective because all the audience’s attention is focused on Theo. The lack of cuts also enables me to feel like I am exactly escaping with Theo in real time. Long takes and lack of cuts definitely provide audience with an authentic experience. This documentary style gives the feeling that the world in the story is the real world we live in. Long take also performs an important role in the scene when Julian gets shot. It is unbelievable to see there is only one take in the scene when Luke drives the car and escapes from the mob completed by a nice and impressive dolly shot.
The cinematography in Children of Men is one of the biggest dazzling points by using single-camera and single-shot movement for many parts of the film. This incredible framework makes a strong impact in the scene for audience. Children of Men is edited in a very linear way. There is no flashback. Every scene leads into the following scene and no time is omitted from the story. Each time the film cuts is the end of one scene and a new scene is going to start. This style also makes audience feel the world in the story is real. An example of this subjective camera movement is the scene where the car Theo is traveling in is attacked and the group has to escape by driving backwards. When the car finally comes to a stop the camera gets out with Theo as he exits the car. The camera then pans to the road and frames awkwardly on the dead officers before cutting, an edit that draws attention to the way the group murdered the officers and then fled.
Alfonso uses many new and innovative techniques in Children of Men to successfully create a sense of reality where audience are able to see the world of the film as if it were their own world. Carefully implemented editing techniques keep the audience focused on the important characters and emotions throughout the film.
Sound
Children of Men does well on both diegetic sound and nondiegetic sound. The director combines rock, pop, dubstep, and classical music pieces to create one of the most innovative sound effects. At the beginning, we hear the news report and know the death of baby Diego. After that, we experience the bomb explosion with huge sound effect. Also, at the end of the film, we could hear kids playing and laughing, which means to enlighten human being’s hope to survive and breed. We can also find that characters have their specific style of music. For example, Jasper, an old-time hippie with long hair and John Lennon style glasses, is fond of classic rock. We could hear “Ruby Tuesday” twice in the scene of his home.
In the film's second half, Alfonso uses less pop music and relies more heavily on augmenting silence with jarring sound effects - the burst of automatic weapons fire, saying, or the squawk of loudspeakers ordering fugees through a maze of cages. With the effect of sound, audience have the sense of feeling that the coastal town of Bexhill, transformed into a giant refugee camp that operates as a Third World city with a black market economy, is chaotic and troubling.
Acting
All of the characters’ performance gives me a strong feeling of authenticity. When Theo visits Jasper for the first time, Jasper acts like a hippie: he lets Theo taste the cigarette with strawberry flavor, tells joke about the “Human Project”, and dance with the music. However, for the second time Theo comes to Jasper’s home with Kee, Jasper’s attitude and behavior changes significantly. From this scene, we can see how deep their friendship is, which makes it reasonable when Jasper sacrifices himself to help Theo. He becomes very serious and helps Theo figure out difficulties to get to the border. When Fishes follows Theo to his home, Jasper uses delaying tactic by telling jokes again. Michael Caine has undoubtedly acted a loyal, humorous and optimistic friend of our protagonist.
Theory
The characters and scenes in this movie provide clearly religious elements. This film suggests a transformation of Christian messianic theology about the Son of Man who is destined to save humanity from a cosmic apocalypse. Theo is the typical example we can clearly see that he is closely related with Christian theology. Theo’s similarities to Jesus as messiah are evident in several ways. His character is non-violent, despite being surrounded by guns and bombs. While defending and protecting Kee, he never uses or carries weapons. Theo is also consistently surrounded by animals, which are used throughout the film as indicators of goodness and trustworthiness. The recurrent focus on free animals loving and surrounding Theo is set in contrast to the repeated caging of humans on streets and in camps. The caged humans become living symbols of the unfeeling, institutional systems that have led to apocalyptic conditions.
Ideology
Throughout the film, Cuarón sets intimacy and personal closeness in opposition to dehumanizing and punitive systems of social control. In the movie, Sid is an armed guard who sneaks Theo and Kee into Bexhill Refugee Camp, and who can be read as a human representative of fascist systems. Sid is unable to empathize with Theo, Kee, or Miriam, and laughs at their vulnerable situation. In order to verify Sid’s identity, Theo had to tell him the password – “You’re a fascist pig.” Sid’s inhumanity is underscored by speaking in the third person. “Sid doesn’t know why you want to get in. Sid doesn’t want to know.” His inability to speak in personal pronouns is further indicative of how fascist systems dehumanize people and disable personal recognition.
Children of Men has innovative ideas on telling a fantastic story about rising people’s hope in dilemma by using long take shot and lack of cuts. Meanwhile, actors do great work on delivering their characters’ personalities and traits. Sound also makes the film well developed with a mixture of different styles of music and sound effects.