Children of Men

{mosimage}Alfonso
Cuarón belongs to
the new generation of Mexican directors that keep conquering the Hollywood cinema industry, at the same level than those other two greatest representatives of this new Mexican wave: Guillermo del Toro and
Alejando González Iñárritu.

Iremember watching three years ago his film Y Tu Mama También (2002) at my
place, together  with my two Mexican
flatmates that I had at that time, and I faced that film in the same way that I
was facing days ago Children of Men, just with no particular hope of
finding anything special. In both cases Cuarón´s movies really got me by
surprise. I liked a
lot Y Tu Mama También. I considered that the director had been able to
create a very personal new style of “road movie”. This new film has still many
features of road movie as well, being the feeling in a certain way similar to
years ago. Cuarón achieves one of the freshest science fiction movies of the
last years.

The film is
based on the book The Children of Men by P.D. James, and brings
us into the year 2027, in a violent city of London that reflects the chaos and lost of
hope of all the humankind. Immigration is brutally fought back by a
semi-totalitarian government and meanwhile, the youngest man on earth has died
at the age of 18, and the women are not able to get pregnant anymore. People
live immersed in an existence with no hope, since no more children run in the
parks and the streets, but then a miracle happens when suddenly a new baby is
going to be born in this brave new world.

Clive
Owen finds a role
just made tailor-sized for him. After his shocking appearance as
“taking-no-shit  hero” in Sin City,
this time the character has more human features, more weaknesses that make them
at the same time closer to the spectator. Julianne Moore and Michael
Caine have surprisingly small roles, but decisive to catch the audience
into the plot. Caine, same than the good wines, just seem to be better and more
adorable actor with the past of time, and as the old hippie smoker Jasper, he
looks superb.

There is no
space here for a future time imagined full of hyper-intelligent robots or other
overwhelming special effects. The action is very natural all over the film, and
that is one of the features that shock the viewer: its realism. A couple of
scenes like the chase between the motorbike and the car in the woods, or the
birth of Kee's baby in a filthy room will be recorded inside you memory for a
long time.

Cuarón is
able to show that he does not need elves and orcs to create an amazing trip for
his actors. He just need to surrender them by all the miseries of the humankind
(where to start: war, terrorism, egoism, intolerance search of power, racism…)
to make us feel uneasy facing the thought that maybe this imaginary future
could not be so far from a real one in a couple of decades…

Undoubtedly,
one of the nicest surprises of this year.