Children of Men (2006)

Director: Alfonso Cuarón

Many directors have portrayed the near or distant future in their films. Some have done it with optimism, others with pessimism, but very few have dared to analyze the social, political and catastrophic repercussions of a collapsed present that is totally devoid of a promising future. Apparently, the Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón sees a truly alarming crisis out there, and that’s why he gave us a film that focuses on the chaos and hatred that haunts the contemporary world.

Based on the homonymous novel by the English writer P.D James, Children of Men (2006) takes us into a world where everything seems lost, with no hope of getting better soon. We are placed in 2027 where already 18 years have passed since the last birth of a human being- for some strange reason, women have stopped being fertile. This situation has caused the world to collapse, and now England is the last bastion of hope. There are the large caravans of refugees who try to enter the country in search of a better future, only to be received with aggressive dogs and armed men who lock them up in overcrowded cages. Then there’s a militant group called “The Fishes”, which is dedicated to fight for the rights of immigrants. However, they are regarded as a terrorist group. In the middle of all the chaos, we meet Theo Faron (Clive Owen), a former activist who after the death of his young son has completely lost hope in humans and life. Theo is suddenly kidnapped by The Fishes, and assigned with the task of protecting Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), an Afro-descendant refugee who is mysteriously pregnant in an infertile world. The Fishes intend to take Kee to a disguised hospital ship called Tomorrow, which will carry her to a benevolent group of scientists dedicated to reverse infertility and preserve humanity.

The universe that Cuarón has created can be examined by the way his characters react to the inevitable end of the world. Theo’s friend Jasper (Michael Caine) has decided to spend the last days of civilization by freeing himself from all responsibility and concerns. There’s also Theo’s cousin, Nigel (Danny Huston), a former minister of art who lives among the great works of the world, like Michelangelo’s David and Picasso’s Guernica. He has also acquired the inflatable pig from the cover of Pink Floyd’s Animals. With the frameworks of history and culture having completely collapsed, art has been drained of the context that makes it meaningful. As we already know, Theo has lost all hope and embraces the end, letting things take their inevitable course. In contrast, Theo’s ex-wife, Julian (Julianne Moore), seeks to do something about it. She is the leader of The Fishes and fights for the dignified treatment of the immigrants that arrive in England.

The film’s world is a place where suicide has been normalized. In this society, we find very few technological advances, because what’s the point of developing new technologies if there will not be future generations that make use of them? Cuarón and the Mexican photographer Emmanuel Lubezki take advantage of the visual richness imposed on this universe, allowing the images to speak for themselves. Cuarón, instead of having a narrator that recites explanatory dialogues about the current situations, entrusts the implicit work of the masterful long takes. The images invite the viewer to see beyond the surface, unraveling the cruel society in which the story takes place.

The events of the film seem to recreate the ongoing refugee crisis in the European Union. Since 2015, millions of immigrants have reached the borders of Europe, escaping from the war and invasion of their countries, with thousands of them drowning in the Mediterranean on their way. Those who arrived in Europe are waiting for months and years caged inside inhumane refugee camps. In September 2020, images of the burning refugee camp Moria on the island of Lesbos, Greece shocked the world. Moria was was built to keep 2,840 people, but it soon reached 20,000 habitants. The overpopulation of Moria had serious consequences, most families were crammed into very precarious tents, the sanitary infrastructures were scarce, and the refugees suffered from a violent security and far-right Milizia, violent fights and sexual assaults within the camp. Children of Men‘s images of repression, military abuse and racist contempts also recreate the macabre universes of places like Auschwitz, Abu Ghraib or Guantánamo.

The whole cinematographic elements are integrated in an exceptional way, nothing seems superfluous or unnecessary. As a result, we get a very potent film that deals with rejection, existential anguish, oppression, and the harmful effects that humans have on the world. It is a small glimpse of a current reality. In the end, we can elucidate that the film doesn’t focus directly on the fact that man has lost the ability to have children. Man has lost the ability to love his neighbor and empathize with him, and that’s what has conditioned his current situation. Despite all, the film opens up a possibility, however minimal it may be, that there will be a world where children of men could live peacefully. In Cuaron’s words: “I’m absolutely pessimistic about the present, but I’m very optimistic about the future.”

by Octavio Carbajal González