Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Movie review: Children of Men

O ye children of men blesse ye the Lord : praise him, and magnifye him for ever.

So reads the Book of Common Prayer’s Order for Morning Prayer.

I’ve read most of PD James’s books over the years and if memory serves me, all of her books’ titles are from the Book of Common Prayer. The movie Children of Men, very loosely based on her novel of the same title, is no exception.

(Please note that if you have read the novel there are only a few, very few, similarities between it and the film. I had read the novel years ago and didn’t remember anything in the movie; after I looked it up on line I realized why.)

I saw this movie in the afternoon of January 5, the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany, which celebrates the adoration of the Magi, the Three Wise Men. In the Gospel According to Matthew, it was the Magi who told King Herod of the birth of the King of the Jews. Herod then decreed the killing of all children under the age of two. An angel had alerted Joseph, and he took his family to Egypt, where they lived until Herod’s death.

In the movie it’s the year 2027 and mankind has reached the point where there is nothing to live for, as all women are barren and no children have been born for eighteen years. In that world there are no children of men left to praise the Lord and bless Him. Mankind debauches itself into a cataclysmic spasm of violence, ecological disaster, war, anarchy, totalitarianism, and despair. The biggest billboards constantly advertise Quietus, a drug for self-euthanasia – to borrow Peter Singer‘s euphemism for suicide – so “you decide when”.

The movie’s protagonist, Theo (from the Greek name Theodoros, which meant “gift of god”) played by Clive Owen, lives a life of quiet despair and low-grade alcoholism in the middle of a London that has descended to Third-World filth and chaos. He’s then recruited by his former wife(?)/girlfriend(?) (Julianne Moore), the mother of their only child (who died during the flu epidemic of 2009) to bring to safety the only pregnant woman in the world, a teenager named Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey). Along with them comes a new-age midwife, played by Rita Davis.

Theo is Joseph to Kee’s Mary. There the resemblance ends. While Mary conceived through a miracle, Kee conceived while indulging in unprotected sex with many men.

I’m not over stressing the symbolism and religious imagery because they are an integral part of this plot.

The original soundtrack music written by contemporary religious music composer John Tavener further underlines that.


In addition, there are dozens of cultural points of reference (I’m sure viewers more familiar with London and the other locations will find even more) along the way – from Michelangelo’s David and Pink Floyd’s pig on the wing

You know that I care what happens to you
And I know that you care for me
So I don’t feel alone
Of the weight of the stone
Now that I’ve found somewhere safe
To bury my bone
And any fool knows a dog needs a home
A shelter from pigs on the wing

to concentration camps and Bosnia-like war-scarred streets. Bosnia comes to mind also because of the illegal aliens helping Theo at that locale.

The overall effect is quite powerful. At times, however, it’s excessive and farcical – one moment you have jihadists marching down the street carrying machine guns and chanting Allah Akbar, and a minute or so later a herd of bleating sheep roll down the same street. Director/screenwriter Alfonso Cuaron really did throw in everything and the bullet-ridden kitchen sink, and then some – Theo’s destination is the good ship TOMORROW, just in case you don’t get it.

The only relief in this apocalyptic scenario is Theo’s friend Jasper (Michael Caine, brilliant as always), a former cartoonist. Michael Caine’s hairdo looks suspiciously like Tavener’s. Jasper, a throwback to the 1960s, lives in a secluded idyllic setting in a house which even today is an anachronism, outdated solar panels and all, with his catatonic wife who apparently became so from being tortured by MI5. Jasper loves his homegrown pot, but keeps a box of Quietus handy.

One gets the feeling that Jasper and the midwife (Rita Davis) would have participated in the Global Orgasm – Jasper for the fun, and the midwife for the peace. These two New Age characters are the only ones not corrupted by the state of their society.

Theo embarks into a mission fraught with peril and hope – hope being what he had lost years ago. Clive Owen successfully brings the character to life. His Theo is overwhelmed and beaten, but he still presses on to the very end. He will not be defeated.

I won’t explain the plot further, but the overall effect on me was one of bafflement and mild exhaustion. The movie got really good reviews, but except for Clive Owen and Michael Caine, I would have preferred if they had spared me a current-event issue or two, along with the sheep.

Rated R for violence, nudity, language, and disturbing images.

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Give Sadr the Treatment, and today’s other items

Give Sadr the Treatment: How to beat Iraq’s Shiite extremists

What I’m trying to say here is that the military component we need at this particular stage should be different from the routine military operations that U.S. and Iraqi military had been conducting so far.

The new military component should be designed to create a friendly climate where politicians can strike deals and reach compromise without coercion from radical extremists.

And so if more boots are to be added on the ground then the mission will have to include freeing politicians and parties such as Nouri al-Maliki and Tariq al-Hashimi (of the Dawa and the Islamic party respectively) from the ropes that bind them to Muqtada al-Sadr and harmful elements in the Sunni political scene.

Right now is a good time, perhaps the best time we have, to launch this effort since there’s already a large front forming from the parties that are willing to talk against the extremists’ camp.

If the way forward requires maintaining the basic course of the political process and empowering (and cleaning) the current government and its head then the only way to do this is to relieve Mr. Maliki, his party and the rest of the Shia alliance from the dominance and influence of Sadr, and there are two ways to accomplish this: either persuade Mr. Maliki and his team and promise them great support and protection from Sadr’s reach, or deal a lethal blow to Sadr and his militia in order to render him unable to inflict harm on Mr. Maliki and other members of the United Iraqi Alliance.

Now really, it shouldn’t be that difficult to figure out that the first way isn’t working out right, what’s needed now is to take the decision to try the second way and deal with the biggest threat to stability in Iraq in the way we should.

Holidays in the news:
Via Bill, Kwanzaa — Racist Holiday from Hell

John Kerry wasn’t in a holiday mood …

An exercise in arrogance: The Beeb’s Channel 4 presumes to tell Christians what Christmas is about by having a Muslim woman deliver an “alternate” Christmas message. Here’s the video:

The Hajj starts tomorrow. Will the Beeb’s Channel 4 have a Christian woman give Muslims an “alternative” pilgrimage message?

Point – counterpoint on Indonesia:
Friendly Muslims vs. Here Dhimmi Dhimmi Dhimmi…

Books, and other items from Larwyn, Cinnammon and Maria
Austin Bay reviews Lawrence Wright’s book, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

Alexandra and Dr. Sanity ponder Iran.

Via Larwyn, Books on my Amazon Wish List
and
Now, Murtha’s Lobbyist Connections Come Into Question. Now isn’t it precious, as the Church Lady would say, having a lobbying group’s acronym spell P-A-I-D?

Via Cinnammon, The Sandy Berger Experiment: Bush Official Destroyed 9/11 Documents

Via Maria, the US Navy Presidential Ceremonial Honor Guard Drill Team:

More blogging later.

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The Che myth

Michelle Malkin blogs that Target’s pulled the Che CD case but still carries the Che Calendar.

Nothing shows what an ignoramus you are like having a Che Calendar hanging on your wall.

Yesterday I was talking to Mary Anastasia O’Grady of the WSJ, and I asked her, what book would she recommend for a quick primer on Che? Mary’s choice is The Che Guevara Myth and the Future of Liberty by Alvaro Vargas Llosa, published by The Independent Institute. I read the whole book (67 pages of text) in one sitting last evening.

As it turns out, Alvaro had an epiphany because of Che’s image hanging on a wall (page 2):

A few years later, I spent a semester studying at an American university. Che Guevara made a new attempt to seduce me. This time, my friends were mostly politically active Puerto Ricans who wanted their land to be independent.

It never ceases to amuse me how many independentistas come to the continental USA for college. But I digress.

One of them hung a poster of Che Guevara on his wall and, next to it, a picture of “Comrade Gonzalo”, the genocidal leader of Shinning Path, Peru’s Maoist organization.

And that’s another thing: the rich Marxists. When I was at the University of Puerto Rico, one of the most Marxist guys around drove a convertible Jaguar. Now, when you realize that a Jaguar in Puerto Rico at that time cost twice what it cost in the continental USA, you really appreciate the meaning of the word irony. Alvaro continues (emphasis added),

As I came into the room one afternoon and this couple [Che and “Comrade Gonzalo”] faced me from the wall, I was paralyzed. It suddenly downed on me why my South American friend from boarding school had never been quite able to persuade me to take up Che.

There it was, pure and simple: just like Abimael Guzman, Che was the negation of what I most seemed to long for in this complicated word – freedom and peace. I must have vaguely sensed this at school, but now, for the first time, I was able to fully grasp a precious truth: one should never be confused by the many variations of that species: the tyrant. Stalinist Che Guevara and Maoist Abimael Guzman belonged to different camps and represented contrasting attitudes to life – the former being the quintessential pinup, the latter a bizarre recluse – but what they had in common, their lust for totalitarian power, was much more important than their differences.

I had experienced firsthand Shining Path’s campaign of terror against the very poor peasants in whose name it purported to act. Like millions of Peruvians, I had personally been affected in different ways by this unlikely reincarnation of Cambodia’s Pol Pot in the middle of the Andes. Seeing Che Guevara next to Guzman on a chic campus wall brought to light the ugly truth about the Argentine hero of the Cuban Revolution, but, more importantly, it inspired the poignant realization that all those prepared to use force to take life and property from their fellow men are soul mates whatever the ideological or moral subterfuge used to conceal their real motives. “Really, you should rip that off. You have no idea,” I said to my friend, and I left the room quite disturbed.

Many years later, when I had the chance to encounter numerous other disguises for tyranny, some on the left but others on the right, I focused on that image from university as the starting point of a larger reflection. The conclusion I reached continues to haunt me today: there are myriad forms of oppression, some much more subtle than others, sometimes adorned with the theme of social justice and at other times obscured by the language of security, and recognizing and denouncing the deceitful psychological mechanisms with which the enemies of liberty attempt to bamboozle us into voluntary servitude is one of the urgent tasks of our times.

I highly recommend The Che Guevara Myth and the Future of Liberty

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