So, so much more than a Hollywood action movie

Rating: 10/10 (10 April 2007)

Whoa, talk about a mis-marketed movie! Never have I seen a film's trailer do so little justice to what the film actually is. I went and saw this for $1 at my incredibly sleazy neighborhood second-run theater expecting some neat cinematography ('cause I'd already seen some clips on Youtube) and that's about it. Oh how much more this turned out to be. To call this a "Hollywood" film seems grossly inaccurate (save for a few small moments here and there, which I'll get to in a moment), as I can't really think of any Hollywood movie to compare it to stylistically or thematically. It reminds me more of Michael Haneke's "Time of the Wolf" than anything else, but with a camera style which actually recalls Gaspar Noe's "Irreversible" (an almost absurd thought for a big-budget, studio-backed film). It is this insane cinematography which really earns the film such an outstanding score, since I guess I can see how the same screenplay could have resulted in a pretty stupid movie in anyone else's hands. While certainly not cringe-worthy and pandering, the script does struggle with some very clunky exposition (like every time Clive Owen's dead child is brought up, or when the midwife suddenly begins explaining her back story randomly for seemingly no reason), and strains credibility for the sake of plot-momentum at at least one point (namely where Clive Owen conveniently overhears how The Fish killed his ex-wife. The script's reliance on surprise moments also wore a little thin after a while (the scene where we think Jasper is dead but he isn't works, but by the time we get to where we think the prison guard is going to whack Clive Owen but he doesn't it's gotten contrived). I also found the very ending rather disappointing. Having succeeded so thoroughly at creating an uncompromisingly bleak tone, it feels like a slap in the face to the rest of the film when the "Tomorrow" boat appears. If it had ended just a few moments earlier, with Clive Owen and the girl floating alone in their dinky little boat, it would have been amazing. That said, none of these vague flaws do anything in the long run to diminish the sheer impact the rest of the film creates. Through the masterful long takes and unbelievably complexly choreographed mis-en-scene a sense of pure sensory overload and tension is attained unlike anything else I have ever seen. To compare it to the beginning of "Saving Private Ryan" feels cheap and does no justice to the film as a whole, yet it is the only comparison within mainstream cinema that I can think of. But unlike Spielberg's drivel, Children of Men refuses to soften up, or to take sides. The bleakness is overwhelming and deadening, the violence is jarring and frightening, as much the polar opposite of Quentin Tarantino's violence as I can imagine. The few moments of tenderness feel hard-earned and real, and pack just as much emotional punch to me as the film's violence. I find it remarkable now the film refuses to portray either the rebels or the government as admirable. In the context of the violent frenzy, "sides" don't even come into play, it's just pure terror. I loved how the camera would often wander indiscriminately, catching little visual asides and focusing on them for little moments, giving a greater sense of just how much is going on during all these scenes of intense combat, or even just the glimpse of Jaspar and his catatonic wife we get after Clive Owen and the girl leave, something a "normal" Hollywood movie would never do. The entire refugee camp sequence is as masterful a piece of virtuosic visual film-making as I have ever seen. Granted, all of this probably loses quite a bit of impact on a small screen, so I'm glad I saw it in a theater, albeit as shoddy a theater as one can imagine, especially since it's really as much of a last chance to do so as I could possibly get (hell, the movie's already out on DVD).
As a side note, anyone who dismisses the film's cinematography because Emmanuel Lubezki occasionally "cheated" with the long takes by digitally enhancing them is, in my opinion, not only entirely missing the point but also snobbishly denying the possibilities that digital post-production offer, in my eyes not at all different from refusing to listen to music made on a synthesizer or even to refuse to listen to music on compact disc or MP3!