Children of Men
What will the world look like in the not-too-distant future? Will it be a world where there is inter-racial harmony, equality and scientific advancement? Or will it be a place of growing despair and inequality, racial discrimination, fear and social decay?
Alfonso Cuaron's new film, Children of Men, adapted from the P.D. James novel of the same name, suggests the latter. Cuaron, however, does not offer us the normal utopian or dystopian scenario often found in other films in the science fiction genre. While many seek to create a futuristic utopian/dystopian world based on shiny robots, advanced technology and gleaming buildings, Cuaron opts for a future world based on the gritty reality of the present day.
Children of Men is set in the year 2027 and humanity is on the brink of extinction because the human race has become infertile. For 18 years, no human child has been born. The population is aging and the film opens with Princess Diana-like grief sweeping the population as a result of the news that the youngest person in the world, 18-year-old "Baby Diego" has been murdered.
In this bleak and depressed world, Cuaron allows one small glimmer of hope to emerge. Kee, a young refugee, is pregnant. Helped by a revolutionary group called the Fishes, Kee (Ashitey) is on the run. Led by a dynamic woman called Julian (Moore), the Fishes enlist the help of Julian's former lover, Theo (Owens). Theo, a former activist, is now a low-level government bureaucrat, who also happens to be related to the one man who can obtain the correct transportation papers Kee needs.
Throughout Children of Men, many things are never explained fully. Cuaron, who co-wrote the script with Timothy Sexton, never fully explains why the world has become infertile. We are never told exactly who is now in control of Britain or the "free world", but we know that the rest of the world has collapsed and only Britain "soldiers on".
Cuaron describes a world where it is no longer shocking to see starving and desperate refugees from Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the US locked up in cages at train stations and on the streets. We see evidence of militarism and fascism. And while we learn that the Fishes are opposed to the government and their inhuman detention of refugees, Cuaron never fully explains who the Fishes are, what their political program is or even why they are called the Fishes.
Cuaron's deliberate evasiveness, however, does not distract from the film. Instead it adds to the film's realism, as we are offered tidbits of information that allow us to piece together and view a world that has been brought to its knees by the ravages of capitalism.
Children of Men is science fiction. Nevertheless, the political subject matter that backgrounds the film and the doco-drama realism of the way it is filmed, give the audience the uneasy feeling that the future it portrays may in fact be, just around the corner.