Wednesday, May 23, 2007

children of men.


Alex and I watched the movie "Children of Men" on the weekend and I am still having apocalyptic type visions/nightmares in relation to this film. This movie scarred the shit out of us - mainly because it was so cleverly grounded in so many current truths and occurrences. The frightening factor was the treatment of refugees in the face of extreme world terrorism. As someone who has been to detention camps in Australia, it brought back uncanny flashbacks.
But this movie is not a science-fiction futuristic vision - it is already happening. In the face of fear we harm the innocent as a means of self -preservation but as the movie closely pointed out such actions lead to the slow death of humanity (in the movie's case - due to infertility)


Humanity can die a metaphorical death and I believe that this will continue to happen while we embrace fear and label individuals as the 'other'.

8 comments:

byron smith said...

Jess and I saw this movie a month or so ago and also thought that the power was in the background. The foreground plot was very straightforward (and also very under-explained) and basically an excuse to give us a tour of the world (fairly typical in a dystopia).

nico said...

we saw this movie when it was out and have subsequently purchased the dvd (a very rare occurrence which happens only when we absolutely love or really want to think more about something).

i'm not convinced that this kind of a world is either impossible (perhaps bar the infertility) or the worst possibility. to me it was one fascinating and desperate eventuality of a broken world - i was particularly struck by the man who purchased priceless works of art in the face of the end of humanity...
at the very least it's a great springboard for discussion.

byron smith said...

Nico - were the artworks purchased, or 'purchased'? I suspect that if the rest of the world (bar Britannia) had 'gone under' as one headline said, obtaining these artworks was done by stealth and force rather than finances. Someone has to look after them. The burden of civilisation. Same attitude the British have had to great treasures for centuries (ever been to the British Museum?).

nico said...

hmm, you're right. perhaps i should have said 'obtained'...

(ps the british museum is a treasure trove i have yet to explore)

Joanna said...

Did any of you watch the 'extras' dvd? It had a swag of serious philosophers/social commentators (Zizek, Naomi Klein) talking about issues around the film. By far the most impressive extras dvd I've ever seen! Zizek's comments made me realise that, like 1984, the movie is not really about the future, but about now - infertility as a metaphor for the barren state of our cultural and moral life.... I found it very thought-provoking! You can find Zizek's comments on YouTube.

Anonymous said...

Naomi Klein does a great job describing a lot of the above mentioned themes in "The Corporation". But Children of Men really hit the spot in terms of nailing the sheer horror and chaos that many people already live in now in the 3rd world, especially when us westerners let things run amok in their economies and politics because we sometimes profit from it or cannot afford to "get involved." The shock in this movie was seeing such desperation come to "civilized" Britain. As the old saying goes, most countries are only 3 meals away from barbarism.

Speaking of barbarism coming to our shores, anyone up for seeing "A Crude Awakening" next weekend? The Melbourne Age calls it "Incisive and Terrifying". Well, yeah, if you've only just woken up to these facts. (Like poor Chloe Fox, MP in South Australia who recently stated "I cannot explain everything there is to be said about peak oil theory, but I urge people to please go on the internet, go to Google, type in the words `peak oil theory', and if you read what I have read, you will not be able to sleep at night."

So, on this movie, who is free on Friday the 22nd or Saturday 23rd? (I'm busy this weekend.) has the legendary "Matt Savinar" of which started the whole peak oil thing for me. Not that I agree with his sense of inevitable doom, but inevitable Greater Depression seems pretty spot on.

Anonymous said...

Sorry about that, I was SURE I got the code right but Blogger does weird stuff.

Here's the preview to A Crude Awakening.

http://oilcrashmovie.com/

Here's Matt Savinar's LATOC.
http://lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

Anonymous said...

OK, I'll just let you all know that Sydney Peak Oil and I are discussing seeing it this weekend sometime on either Friday night or Saturday.

Join in the discussion at:

http://tinyurl.com/2a9vak

If you are not already registered at Sydney Peak Oil, email me and I'll set you up an account.

eclipse -now AT optusnet.com.au

Just delete spaces and put in AT symbol. Cheers.