A fantastic film - stylistically perfect!
A film whose story is driven by cinematography ( you can only make that much long shots in a 2 hour film to still get somewhere with the story).
Very quickly in the film you start to notice that something is different. Well, actually the very first scene (before the main title comes up) is immediately different that most everything I have ever seen. Its starts simply, the camera follows the main character from a coffee shop through a crowd of people to the street ,where it follows him for a moments ,circles around him to face the way he came from when BOOM the coffee shop explodes( the one he just came out off , camera goes forward into the smoke . All this is one continuous shot. A ringing in the ears is all we hear for couple of minutes as it slowly fades out. And with that the scene sets the tone of this futuristic time which appears to be very unstable , dark , sad, grey and lonely. The atmosphere of a life 20 years in future is completely realistic and believable and is created in less than 2 minutes. A very very strong opening. I wish though, that the film never distanced from that same atmosphere and quality. Sadly in places it does.
Conceptually its very good, very interesting. The concept of this collapsing world, and infertility is original enough and the infertility issue explains the chaos,sadness and downfall reasonably well.
Now about the technical magic:
The first really long shot of the film is one of the technically most interesting and captivating scenes I have seen( in modern cinema) . Sadly there are some major continuity and cgi mistakes( the windshield that shatters into pieces ,and then reappears as if it didn't fall out ( however, one can imagine that , the car is so technically sci-fi advanced that it had a way of putting in a new windshield -_-.... And the little delay when the person gets shot in the car- in this scene you see that the synchronization of actions could have been smoother ) The rest is simply gorgeous. The scene starts at around 27th minute and lasts for stunning continuous 4 ! minutes . Imagine the skill needed to accomplish that ,for all the actors and everybody. The absolute mesmerizing 360 degree camera in the car! I just watched and could not understand what sorcery is that! An amazing experience. I must admit I watched that scene more than once!
Another great scene , I think , was starting at around 45th minute. Where the main characters are running away from the farm, chased by the terrorists. It is one of the most suspense scenes I have seen thats achieved by such simplicity and silence- yes no over-dramatic music, just shouting , performance and camera movement!! You get really thrilled and even scared. I found myself almost loudly rooting for them to get away, begging to some cinema god , oh please damned car start working! A genuine suspense!
There are more amazing long shots, but I will just say ,for the unbelievable skill of the crew ,watch the film and enjoy those long shots. And if you think you will not notice them , you definitely will! Its not something you see often.
Lastly the scene where the baby is taken out of the house , it is truly beautiful! ( this time with the help of music, though, but that doesn't make it less good , just a little cheat ,that only feels cheat in this particular film because the music is not overly used and when it is used, you immediately notice it) . Story wise and common sense wise , the scene didn't make all the sense , but nothing is perfect, right?
Great work from Clive Owen. He was really good. The scene of his breakdown was truly touching!
After all this praise about the stunning technical work and cinematography , I have to say something bad right? No, but well , as I mentioned before , the story isn't all praise and well it has some of those technical mishaps that are inevitable when trying to make something as complicated as those long shots.
Although the film is called Children of Men, the film is actually a story of Clive Owens character Theo. And because its pretty much centered around him , sometimes it feels like we are lacking a lot of information about what is happening and why, but then again we are supposed to know everything that Theo knows, and we don't , what he doesn't. Sometimes , though, he(us) seems to be acting unreasonably and we are left in dark a lot at the start. Honestly I really like these really close almost 1st person stories , where the viewer in a way simply jumps into some characters life and from that moment lives with him till the end of the film. The film really makes you believe that the character has lived outside the film ,he has his own history and memories. So in terms of this character the film does good ,and the film is complete. When you look in terms of Children of Men , you are left with a wondering. Why, what happened, how, whats next?
At the end of the day it feels like a small scale story in a big scale concept! You are quickly introduced to an intriguing image of our future and an interesting concept, however you are only allowed a short glimpse in that world. There could be loads of sequels, and ones I would happily watch!
No comments:
Post a Comment