Haunting and Exhilarating

Rating: 10/10 (18 July 2016)

The future: it is vital to the spirit of mankind. We live for the future. Without it, we can't hope or dream or believe. Without it, our lives are bleak and meaningless. Children of Men takes place in a world with no future. Women have become infertile. Not a single child has been born for eighteen years. It is the darkest kind of dystopia. Most dystopias are caused by war or famine or disease or an oppressive regime. All of those things are loud and tangible. This is different. It's slow, gradual, and complete. Once the current generation dies out, human life on earth is finished. Time is eating the human race alive.
There is only one thing more depressing than living in a world that has ended, and that is living in a world that is ending and knowing there is nothing you can do. That is the situation everyone has to live with in Children of Men, and it has caused the world to erupt into chaos. All the major world powers have collapsed into anarchy. Only Britain is left, and it has become a totalitarian police state determined to keep out foreigners at all costs.
No one in this world looks happy. They want to get as much power for themselves as possible, of course, but they know it doesn't really matter, not in the end. They are all going to die, and no one is going to replace them.
There is but one light, one ray of hope: a pregnant woman- a living miracle- has been discovered. The majority of the film is our main protagonist, Theo, trying to escort this woman through the dystopia to safety. He was only caught up with her because of his wife, who is the leader of a revolutionary wing trying to get immigrants the rights they deserve. The pregnant woman was in the revolutionary camp, but after the camp is taken over by radicals who want to kill Theo and use the baby for their own purposes, the two of them leave, meeting many interesting figures on their difficult path way to freedom.
This is arguably one of the greatest pieces of postapocalyptic fiction ever created. The storyline is good, the writing is great, and the characters have a sense of desperate humanity to them that's missing from too many postapocalyptic tales. But it is Cuaron's talent as a director that makes this film extraordinary. This is one of the best directed films I have ever seen. While much credit should go to the cinematography, which is astounding, Cuaron seamlessly weaves these excellent pieces into an evocative tale that is equal parts elegant, gritty, and haunting. No other filmmaker can match his love of- or talent with- moving camera shots. The full scope of the dystopia is on full display. He indulges in the entire world, not just the main character, making everything feel darker yet more alive and certainly more focused on the emotions this film is generously putting on display.
A glorious, grim spectacle, this is a triumph of modern filmmaking from one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Every second, every shot, every sequence breathes with energy, with power, with unequaled decisiveness, showing perfectly a story of desperation and despair, of misery and desire, of oppression and resilience, of hope lost and hope found.