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?