Glorious cinematic experience

Rating: 10/10 (28 September 2006)

The trailer proclaiming Children Of Men was "from the director of 'Y Tu Mama Tambien' and 'Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkhaban'" made me chuckle - two very different films. Yet of course, Alfonso Cuaron's astonishing cinematic style and the colours he wrings from the screen are present in both, and are very much present in Children of Men - which in the sense that it's about a car journey from the city to the sea, has the same basic premise as Y Tu Mama Tambien. Beyond that, the contrast couldn't be starker, though, with the gorgeous Mexican countryside and sunshine of the earlier film replaced by a dank, drizzly Britain whose landscape is filled with fields of burning cattle, smoke-belching factories and derelict schools. In Y Tu Mama Tambien, the travellers are shown kindness and hospitality by all they meet - in Children Of Men, they are ambushed by a burning car and chased by motorcycle gunmen. And the journey ends not in an unspoilt Pacific beach paradise, but the foggy English Channel, with toxic waste spewing into the water.
But despite the depressing nature of this vision of Britain in 2027, it's no less sumptuous a cinematic experience - Cuaron makes greyness and decay throb with colour. The London of the future seem depressing and exhilarating simultaneously - much of the enjoyment of this first part of the film is watching out for all the subtle and not so subtle differences between life now and in the future. There is also a bit of humour early on - the inflatable pig outside Battersea Power Station, and Theo's boss's office festooned with cricketing memorabilia which seems to suggest that England hadn't won the Ashes since 2005! Somehow even the state-provided suicide pills with the slogan 'You Decide When' are quite amusing. The second part of the film is the most conventional 'action movie' section, as Theo and Kee make the hazardous journey from London to Bexhill, and finally there is the refugee camp and battle scene, which is not just stupendous in execution, but is a powerful reminder that people are living like this right now, whether in Guantanamo Bay or Lebanon - the scene where the block of flats is shelled was an incredibly vivid depiction what must be the sheer terror of being bombed in your own home - and the wailing of the baby amid the destruction a heartbreaking reminder of how the most innocent suffer in war.
This is a great film on every level - beautiful to look at, great acting (with Clive Owen perfect in the role of Theo), fantastic music and a gripping narrative, which you can view as sci-fi, action movie or political allegory, depending on which mood you're in. And just as Cuaron's even earlier Great Expectations had a great Pulp song, so as the credits roll, we have Jarvis Cocker's wondrous "C***s Are Still Running The World" - the title of which can either be interpreted as being about political leaders - or perhaps in the context of the film and the miraculous birth of a baby, is about womankind being restored to their rightful place in the natural order of things as the givers of life.