Children of Men is about a world without hope, order or morality. A world nearing it's end because women have lost the ability to have children. A world of terrorism, immigration, deportation, xenophobia, of police brutality and terror. A world that may not be so far removed from our own. A not-so-distant fictitious future that is uncannily hard to distinguish from what we're making of ours. It is a story that lets the characters slowly fade into the background, transforming a message of hope in the strength of mankind into a posthumanist discourse that seeks to level the hierarchy and the boundaries between the human and the non-human.
Lets begin with the plot and genre.
As soon as it opens, Children of Men sets itself apart from its fellow dystopian science fiction movies. Though it is set in the future (2027) and the basic premise (the end of the human race) suggests it's a science fiction film, it doesn't focus on the scientific reasons for infertility nor does it focus on a cure. The narrative journey that Theo takes is that of a conventional Road Movie. The focus on dialogue is more associated with drama. Some scenes are constructed to look like war movies, and the long takes and lack of close-ups in the filming style are borrowed from the documentary genre.Children of Men goes beyond being a generic hybrid - it's a work of bricolage.
The first shot is a shot of an audience. Of us. They gaze into a television, receiving news of 'Baby Diego's' death- the youngest person in the world. They learn the news the same way that we do; though the media. And here Afonso Cuaron establishes one of the main tropes of the film: foreground-background.
The lead story of Children of men is the story of Dr. Theo Faron, an apathetic government bureaucrat who regains his roots as a political activist after he sees that there is still hope left. His ex-wife reconnects with him, now the leader of an activist (or terrorist, depending on the perspective) organization named the Fishes. He's charged with safely delivering an illegal immigrant to a group called "The Human Project". It all comes down to one thing; Kee, the immigrant, is pregnant, and her child is the hope of humanity. This is the foreground. Just as the audience gazes single-mindedly into the television, allowing the background to go unnoticed, so would we allow ourselves to ignore the background as we crowd around the main story. But the background is not to be ignored.
"Nearly everything is a metaphor for the main character. The way I tend to approach a film is that character and background are equally important; one informs the other. — Alfonso Cauron."
It is a commentary. As we follow along the linear path that is Theo's story, the camera becomes increasingly curious, repeatedly preoccupied with what's going on in the background, wandering off and lingering on things our main character doesn’t stop to notice.
Powerful imagery is embedded all throughout. Nearly every frame is imbued with precise, terrifying details, from TV screens to graffiti-covered walls to the newspaper headlines and propaganda posters. The refugee camps strongly resemble and are meant to remind audiences of torture establishments such as Guantanamo bay, Abu Ghraib or the Holocaust. It seems one of the oldest democracies, in the face of a refugee crisis, has slipped into something reminiscent of Nazi Germany; hunting down "fugees" "like cockroaches", rounding them up like animals in cages, sending them to refugee camps to be deported or even shot- these scenes have The Libertines' 'Arbeit Macht Frei' playing in the background. 'Arbeit Macht Frei' is a German phrase meaning "work makes you free". It was placed over the entrance to numerous Nazi concentration camps. Contain those symbolic overtones and images of the Holocaust. It shows how people can become when the government orchestrates their fears.
In a scene where the man characters are arriving at one of the detention camp, there is fleeting, but unmistakable allusion. Though the window a hooded detainee can be seen- It's the infamous hooded prisoner tortured and abused at the Abu Ghraib prison, wearing a poncho and forced to stand with his arms outstretched for hours. In the same scene detainees are stripped to their underwear, being frightened by dogs- just like at Abu Ghraib.
There are many, many more examples. The newspapers are filled with headlines about nuclear fallouts, military attacks, religious fundamentalism - based terrorist attacks, backlash against refugees and immigrants, mass suicides, fatal fertility drugs, mosques being put under surveillance, allegations of tortures of journalists, medical malpractice, political coup d'etat and dirty bombs.
Allusions to real-life events and organisations like the homeland security are subtly hidden for those looking to find. Seen though the screens of TVs there is both fictional and real-life footage used such as 9/11. These themes are by cross-referencing these contemporary images, creating extraordinary plausibility. Already we see all of these events unfolding before us in our own world.
Quietus is a publicly-marketed suicide drug seen on many of the commercials of TV; it speaks volumes of the utter hopelessness that has gripped the world. This cross-referencing extends to the arts and to culture, propagating the themes. For example Boticelli's "Birth of Venus" is referenced when Kee first reveals her pregnancy. She stands in the same position, symbolizing maternity.
At the "Arc of Arts", where Theo goes to visit his cousin, a pig floats above the factory-like landscape, a reference to Pink Floid's album "Animals", which in turn referenced George Orwell's book "Animal Farm", which accused, through satire, socialism and authoritarianism.
Picasso's Guernica (1937) painting- a painting depicting the realities of war, in itself showing a wailing woman holding her dying son in her arms.
By the end of the movie there's a scene of a woman wailing and holding her dead son in her arms, in the same way as a photograph taken (from real life) during the Balkan wars in 1990 by Georges Merillion- it itself referencing the sculpture "La Pieta" by Michaelangelo,
All of these subtle incredibly well inter-linked references work together, whether ancient of current, to immerse one in complex narrative and commentary. The way that, in our own lives, the displacement of immigrant refugees and tightening of borders, the unchecked growth of capitalist enterprises and the prioritized agendas of narrow, conservative interests are intimately interlinked, so are the references in this movie. They allow one to see what they normally can't- see the world naked, see the world of the posthuman apocalypse through the eyes of objectivity.