Children of Men

Interesting way to ring in the new year: watch a dark and stunning anti-utopian movie that is so realistic that it leaves you in chills.

I just watched Children Of Men, a new movie based on P. D. James novel of the same name and stars Clive Owen of Sin City fame.

This is an amazing and sobering movie, and reminded me of Saving Private Ryan combined with George Orwell's 1984. The violence is as stark and hyper-realistic as in Saving Private Ryan, but even more disturbing. At least in that movie only soldiers died in disturbing ways; in Children both soldiers and civilians are senselessly killed with graphic and heart-pounding realism.

I especially loved the movie for its dystopian atmosphere that would have made Orwell sweat. One theme in the movie seems to be that fascism is the natural form of government in chaotic times. Here the strongest take power and destroy any one different in a effort to create a small paradise of tranquility for the rich while the majority of the population suffers.

Some spoilers: A chain of events (war in Iraq and Israel, bird flu of 2008, nuclear holocaust in New York) creates a unstable world that is not ready for a real disaster: global infertility of women. After the last child is born in 2009, the world sinks into a spiral of war, terrorism, and self destruction. Without children there is no hope for the future. Until one woman miraculously becomes pregnant...

This is definitely not a feel good or Friday night date movie. Much like after Saving Private Ryan, expect the theater to be sobering quite.