Children of Men and Overlapping Worlds

The problem with most scifi films are those unnatural lulls in the script that are used to teach and explain to us all the reasons why we should be convinced of their vision of the future. The more that is explained, the more potential for holes in the script anyways. It's refreshing when a story both begins and continues to basically say, "this is just the way it is". Don't ask for reasons, because everyone's got all their own theories and that's the best we can do. So in that sense, the world in Children of Men is more convincing because we can easily relate to aspects of reality that don't seem to have good explanations, even while many political and philosophical sectors will give their own answers or criticisms. In this kind of sci-fi, the air is cleared for a purer development of a simple allegorical narrative that dances over the roaring undercurrents of existential dilemmas.

Children of Men works better than other dystopia films because the blame game is not so cut and dry. We have competing philosophical interpretations of the state of the world: pure chance or the trials of faith. Unexplainable circumstances, you know "this is something that just happened", clear the air for the real drama: how are individuals, institutions, and basic world views reacting to it? What sort of character will be expressed and intensified in these hyperbolic situations? How will society redefine itself due to something over which it has no control? Are we learning something more pure and unveiled about basic human nature? Political and blunt social issues currently under debate are only there to obscure the real investigation. So the fact that the story doesn't completely depend on political debates and overt social issues makes it way more ominous in what we are being asked to face.

Cinematically speaking, Children of Men is perhaps the first film to effectively and masterly transpose that unique kind of environment and sense of fluid movement in space that we have been experiencing in newer video games. Ironically the video games themselves have been borrowing heavily from film and now we are seeing the seeds of their labors being planted back into film, taking along with it the new visual language invented in video gaming. The camera has us following our hero (more our avatar) in a way that could only have happened in the wake of embedded video journalism. We are in the midst of the action, even getting caught up in militant protest marches, bumping into dangerous strangers, having guns waved in our face, weaving in and out of buildings sieged by tank batallions. Yet we are mostly reporting what we see, we are just passing through towards transcendent aims, and our hero survives not through violent confrontations (except one moment) but through cleverness and keeping on the move.

And notice how the shifting of scenarios keeps engaging us from one moment to the next. So fluid, so natural, to have this sort of dystopian opera unfold before our wandering eyes. And our eyes must wander a lot. This is where Kurosawa's ghost has returned. The multiple layers of action in one frame are all brought out in equal focus. With this, it is like we are watching a staged play with mulitple simultaneous scenes, our eyes have to dance from one place on the stage to the next so we can absorb it all at once. Or like that form of Japanese art that eschews Western perspective by placing equal relevance on foreground and background subject matter. It flattens the visual space in order to vivify the psychological space.

The moment where the film took off was the extended sequence of the country drive that resulted in Julian's death and the copkillings. This is much more rewarding than anything I have seen from Altman, PT Anderson, Welles, or any of the others who have indulged in extended uncut shots. It is what Cuaron has made use of within the space of that shot. It begins when playful, slightly uncomfortable yet nostalgic car conversation is elegantly interrupted by a car on fire rolling into our path. There are no obvious cuts. It is a staged costume drama of guerrilla warfare that intensifies with every second. But the visual eye (our place in this world) is disembodied in the very midst, reporting reporting reporting these events from an embedded journalism point of view. The camera is too fluid to be pure documentary style, thus highlighting the psychological atmosphere in which we dwell, in an ironic, zen kind of fashion. Why are we, the camera eye, so fluid and calm in this violent turn of events? Why are there no quick cuts or outside shots to take us out of that mess? There is nothing there to reassure us, are we really just another passenger in this car? Are we safe from the action as the collective eye of the audience?

Where we really see the fruits of genius brought forth is in the final sequence. The narrative by that point, in and of itself, is purely subtext brought out in the full light of day. It is the crowning of the entire effort where these looming themes had been running along in lesser streams before they coalesced. But even more, the glory of the final moments is in visually bringing together all the strings of cinematic experiments for a unique sequence of pure movements that shift us from the disembodied state of embedded pseudo-journalism, to becoming the locus of attention and even bending the environment back upon ourselves. It's as if to say: "Now that you have tried to comfort yourselves in believing you are an immaterial participant in this brutal noir opera, the world has stopped and turned all its eyes upon you. You have affected this world by your presence, but this world has also mortally wounded you after all." And then with the next tank explosion, we are shifted again via tunnel (passageway to the next cinematic world of pure space). Although the director has borrowed many elements from the masters, he has in that last scene brought together something altogether new and defining in the history of cinema. We haven't seen anything like this before, period. I'm amazed at the collective genius that came together for this film.

Christian thematic ties

At the level of story this is, no doubt, a Christian meditation on how so many are attempting to interpret the circumstances and events of the world, and how they react to it. And it is an ongoing critique of how human nature operates, and how various belief systems stand in the face of ominous defeat. The story is shaped by the particular Christian vision of the world as actually being an overlap of two worlds, or two ages. This present, dying age, and the age to come ("Tomorrow" if you will) which cannot be reached or understood without blood being spilt by the one who secures safe passage to that transcendent space.

Clamoring one's way through the violent clash of methods in making the world somehow "better", with the miracle birth hid close to one's bosom, they may only pause momentarily and wonder at the anomaly. But just momentarily because no one can really understand how it is even possible but to either accept the world as it is, or instead try to change it according to our fragmented endeavors. There is no third option, because this is all we have. The problem is, if this is all we have, we are headlong ready to be losing it. What then?

"Lord, thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to another. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made: thou art God from everlasting, and world without end. Thou turnest man to destruction: again thou sayest, Come again, ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday: Seeing that is past as a watch in the night" Psalm 90:1-4

I think it would do Christians good to ponder a bit on the overall scenario. For some inexplicable reason, women have universally stopped conceiving, and that for some time. The film opens with the world's youngest human (about 20 years old) being assassinated on the news, and worldwide grief pours out at an obviously symbolic blow to any hope for the future. So, we are being asked to consider family-building as an extinct concept. There is no explanation given for why it happened, only that it is a situation that cannot be fixed by science, philosophy, political movements or counter-movements. It just is. Now what is there left in life to value, really?

The film in various forms of allegory then asks us to consider two ways of understanding reality. One way is to think that we live in a one-world existence. What you see is what you get. And so we may have a number of theories and programs to address the problem of the human race standing on the edge of extinction, but in the end none of them really matter. What you see is what you get, but what you see is slowly vanishing before your very eyes.

The other way was already mentioned, a two-world schema. This present dying world, and another world with a quality of existence unhindered by the ominous tragedy of this world.

I'm pontificating on this because I think it somehow draws together on the one hand the unfixable problems many people face which tempt them with despair, and on the other hand the heavenly vision which restructures our thinking about these problems. Then there are those who place highest value on the temporary blessings of this world, (as good as they are in themselves, such as marriage and family). And yet those who lack blessing and ever despair because of it, are in the same boat as the temporarily blessed as far as needing that heavenly vision of the world to come. The next world that even now partially overlaps just enough to give substance to hope.

For example, by turning "family values" into a political slogan that is supposed to represent a whole way of interacting with the broader culture, is it possible this is a form of worshipping the family? Does this not war against Jesus' teachings on the kingdom, where even the eunuch (or fill in the blank for any outcast who would have no real possibility in society to be fruitful and multiply) has a blessed place in this new society? The conclusion is that the world to come must inform and temper our thoughts about what happens in this world, and not vice versa. It would make it more possible for the blessed and the unblessed to rejoice together AND grieve together, would it not?

Reading a Living Text in the Shadow of the Cross

File under "Clarifications on Christianity"

In the bible's Gospel of Luke, there is this passage explaining a moment in Jesus' public career:

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.'"
(Luke 14:25-30)

There are a lot of ways Jesus' teachings have been characterized. Some say that he was basically a good religious teacher who wanted others to learn a little bit about a better spiritual life, and how to treat others. Others say he was radical and exploited the political and social conditions of the day to his advantage, pitting the religious and political elite against the "common folk". And so on.

But there's rough spots in Jesus' words, and this part in Luke about the cost of following Jesus is one of the most difficult, disturbing, and misunderstood statements. Who in their right mind would teach potential followers to hate their own families and friends in order to be a follower, who but the most crazed megalomaniac?

That reaction is understandable, because Jesus was deliberately using a form of hyperbole to address the immediate situation. If that hyperbole is taken as it stands without understanding the dynamics of the moment, we miss the point and would write it off as nonsensical misanthropy. Hold off on that conclusion for just a moment.

At that point in Jesus' public ministry, right before Jesus says the statement above, the author notes that "great multitudes were going along with him."

This is interesting because Jesus was not much of a crowd pleaser, nor a traveling showman doing and saying the right things to try and get large followings. So he looks out at the massive crowd and says the above statement point blank.

To catch the force of the moment, you need to reckon with the fact that what goes on here is typical throughout all the Gospels. Despite any protests on our part, we never simply read in the bible about Jesus, not the "we" right now in the 21st century readers nor the first century crowds. It's not us who are reading and studying Jesus, so much as it is Jesus reading us. It's a living text; when we sit down and open the bible to the four Gospels, we are not passive observers to the unfolding of this story, detached from any involvement through the vast distance of time and location. No, Jesus continually turns around and addresses us now today even as we read about his teachings and deeds, because when we read we are a part of that great multitude who were going along with Jesus for all sorts of reasons. He turns around and says the above. What are you looking for when you "go along with him"? What interests you about him? Are you, like many in that great multitude in Luke 14, simply curious about something new that came along? Are you fascinated by controversy? Are you just wanting to see a miracle? Did you hear about him healing a leper or feeding 5000, and hoping that he can come along and fix some certain problem in your life? Does he seem so far like just the right fix to a fundamentally chaotic life? Is he worth following along the path because you might hear some agreeable nuggets of wisdom that confirms our own opinions on life? Does he seem rather liberal in dishing out blessings to the common people and is his righteous anger and criticisms against the religious and conservative elite feel like sweet poetic justice? Does he seem like he's on my side in this crazy drama of life?

Okay, so why are all these implicit questions found in Jesus' teaching and deeds, why is he scanning all of us?

Because if we are reading these texts, or hearing them, we are taking the time to peer into his life, which is not a normal life. And we may tend to quickly forget that his story is the twists and turns of one long procession to a lackluster death on a tree outside the walls of Jerusalem, where he was taken out like the absolute lowest of criminals. So on the way to that morbid appointment, Jesus is going to keep turning and asking us, this great multitude of observers and readers and listeners, "Why are you going along with me? Do you wish to follow me? or is it something else?" He reads us, he exposes us for our own sakes. He murders our ambivalence, and weeds out ulterior motives. He wants us to know that he is not just one more lost cause trying to muster up a counter-movement for his generation to the powers that be. He is claiming a possession of both divine approval and divine participation in a way unique to himself, so that to follow him is to be in devoted allegiance to him. It is to trust him as we could never be expected to trust just any good, mortal man.

"If any man comes to me and hates not . . . "

This is a figure of speech. The point is incisive: "if you are going along with me and are not commited to my cause above any other cause in your life, the sooner you leave the better." Thus the hyperbolic language used, where any other relationship, in comparison to one's commitment to the cause of Christ and the way of the cross, is going to looke like hatred relatively speaking. Although yes, they actually are relationships of love, but by comparison they will look like hatred in that Christ is demanding a way of following him where his cause must be the central concern of any potential follower. All other loves and relationships are to flow out of that one. He speaks for nothing less than a death to self as we know it. Ambivalence and competing commitments will not fare well in the steps of his path to the cursed tree (which stands in the way of the tree of life).

Say what you will about who Jesus is or who you think he is, he was always conscious of the intentions and inner workings of those around him, those of us who read him, and those who look over his shoulder to see what was going on and to see what they can get out of it. When he turns to address the intentions of our hearts, he is meek but he is never mild. And that for our own good.