I have decided to combine these two reviews.
First: Children of Men.
I normally write about things I cam currently working, projects or little things I create in ‘code-space’ but recently one of the things that I have ended up talking to people about is the movie Children of men. Every person who sees this movie *needs* to talk to someone about it because it has such a profound impact.
The movie is dsytopian, and bleak. It is depression and somehow uplifting, it is a strange combination and a powerful story lies underneath the absolutely perfect film making.
Many scenes in the movie are filmed as ‘long shots’ which basically means they have the camera rolling for the whole time and not scenes cut and spliced together, what you see is what you get. For this alone, it is amazing and a shining example of a film that, like it characters, does not take the easy road.
There are so many things to say about this movie I would not know where to start.
Primarily, the things I noticed while watching this gripping and incredibly dense movie were:
1) The primary character (Theo) is a complete pacifist and never picks up a gun throughout the entire movie, when he finally had to hit another character (Sid) he does so in such a way as you know he has never done anything like that before. Don’t expect Theo to turn into rambo, he isn’t and his character stays true to that.
2) We only see and hear what Theo can see and hear, any conversation off screen or through a window are hidden from the audience. This is a subtle but effective tool in making us connect with the character.
3) The aforementioned ‘long-shots’ are not overdone, actually, nothing is over done you almost wish they had done more of those incredible shots.
4) The audience is placed into the world that Theo lives in, it is as if you suddenly find yourself in that world and there is no real attempt to force feed you the details of it, you discover yourself as you go just what is happening and why, but it is not forced on you. It feels like you just walked into something and you connect more with the characters because of this (not in spite).
5) There were real horrors in this movie and part of that horror is that the violence was treated the same as anything else, it just was. There was no special treatment on violence, it was very (as Eve would say) ‘matter of fact violence’ and this just served to amplify it’s effect on the viewer.
6) This movie is long, but it only feels like 30 minutes.
7) No person in the theatre made a sound during the entire movie, everyone was riveted to the edge of their seats and forgot they had popcorn and drinks. Hell, they forgot they were in a theatre.
I am so glad I saw this movie in the theatre, I could not imagnie watching it on a little television. It really does demand the large screen and the full sound.
As the movie progresses, the camera get closer to Theo, by the end of the movie we are running practically alongside Theo. This again is subtle, but involves you deeply with Theo and his perceptions.
If you have not seen it, I would recommend this movie to almost anyone (except friends who have children as this particular movie seems to strike a nerve with parental types and they hate it before it starts)
Tonight I am seeing Pan’s Labyrinth and have heard it is equally amazing.
I am SO glad we are out of the glut of crappy films that we were in from 2003-2006
Editing this post now that I have seen Pan’s Labyrinth.
Pan’s is first and foremost a dark dualistic movie, and secondarily can be taken on it’s fantasy elements.
The story is dense and replete with symbolism, both internally and in the world today. The movie starts with a girl named Ofelia and her pregnant mother (who is not doing well in that endeavor) as they are brought from their home in ‘the city’ (which one we are never told) to a mountainous encampment of her stepfather, a commander of troops who is going through the motions of being a leader as he feels it should be done in living up to his brutal fathers memory, his job that he does not enjoy but does with ruthless precision is to root out a last enclave of rebels in the mountains near his encampment. His encampment is an old stone mill house, with a large main house and barns and quarters for his men.
Ofelia is an imaginative child whose eyes we see the world through, her world of imagination is tied into and interacts with the world as she sees it. As events happen in the ‘real world’ of the story, her world of imagination keeps up with it and offers us insight into some of it. For instance, as the general is cutting rations and has a stockpile of medicines needed by the desperate locals, and we see the local peasants waiting in line for meager bread, Ofelia’s world has her in a dangerous place, with a key to get a knife from a locked wall, where she is forced to walk past a vast feast of food that she must not eat. As is classic in this type of story, she cannot resist and samples some of the food and barely makes it out losing two of the fairies that accompany her. This is on par with Mercedes, the housekeeper whose brother and the rebels in the woods are hunted by the general. She has to walk past the reserves of medicine and has secretly kept a spare key to the store room which is given to the rebels. Etc..
Mercedes is portrayed as Ofelia as grown up, the Ofelia that has stopped believing in fairies and fauns, but one who is familiar with Ofelia’s imagination, and takes the place of protector of Ofelia (even to an intense example in one very brutal scene). Mercedes story is in-line with Ofelia’s story as are all the characters.
There were many subtle nods to all the famous stories, stories we see Ofelia carry around in a stack of books as she is doing the tasks that the faun gives her. The faun is introduced early in the film as Ofelia’s fairy leads her to him at the center of the old stone Labyrinth, near the encampment and which Mercedes is strangely familiar with, telling her stories of her own mother saying to not trust fauns.
I could not mention much more without giving away the story entirely, but suffice to say that in this story, the imaginative elements are deeply tied to the real world events, some that even Ofelia could not know of. And the story circles and turns a delightfully dark and twisted path to it’s end where all the stories come together and we are presented with an ending that is both tragic and wonderful as Ofelia has done her duty to protect her brother from harm while, the grown Ofelia/Mercedes has also protected her brother. We are confronted with the sadness of growing out of imagination and the wonder of it at the same time, the ending is compelling on many levels and will leave you much to think about.
Some things to watch and parallels in the movie.
1) The eyeless man, appears to be a parallel with the government the general follows, and the dignitaries who have recently come to the house blindly spouting things they themselves do not believe, eating at a table of plenty allowing none other to touch. (notice the pile of shoes that is in only one shot)
2) The faun is kind of a father figure, though he is a guide.
3) Mercedes looks like a grown up Ofelia, while Ofelia does not look like her mother. As the story progresses, Mercedes becomes more the mother and the mother becomes more the wife to the general.
4) The frog that poisons the forest tree and that holds the golden key, turned inside out by three stones I ‘think’ is a foreshadowing to the general and three stab wounds he gets. It could also be a more over-arching subtle message that would need a further viewing to see.
5) The death of the two fairies, I am not 100% sure about, but it could be an allusion to the two rabbits hunters, or it could be the two spies the general discovers.
6) The stick bug fairies are a definite relation to the rebels in the forest, leading the way, but not always knowing the way (as in Ofelia decided a different lock to unlock, as the rebels should not have unlocked the lock they did).
And on it goes.
Excellent film, excellent effects that are not overdone, excellent acting and over all beautiful movie with contrasts and subtle references galore. You will be very glad to see this movie and like me will want to see it again.
