Children of Men and contemporary religious film (longish)

Lori and I went to see this Saturday afternoon, and I can't think of the last film that left me so moved and so unnerved. The long takes, particularly the climactic shootout in the refugee camp, certainly had a lot to do with being unnerved; I desperately wanted a shot to end, to give me some relief or moment to breathe, but was rarely accommodated. At the end of the film, I felt out of breath, exhausted, shaky -- and I mean that in a good way.

The film's themes of collapse and rebirth, of reclaiming the concept of "pro-life" from its political sense (or at least presenting another political sense of it) are what moved me. I liked the visual jokes (Theo's brother collects artworks ranging from David to a large-scale recreation of the cover to Pink Floyd's Animals), the way Theo and Julian quickly found anew their love (if not their romance) in the car, the way animals responded to Theo. (A softie when it comes to animals, I was also glad that none of the pets in the film are harmed, on-screen at least!)

But what really got to me, and still unsettles me, is the scene where (and this might count as spoilers, so don't read on if you've not seen it) Theo escorts Kee and her baby out of the apartment building in the middle of the firefight between the Fishes and the Army. With the exception of Fishes leader Luke, everyone who sees the baby immediately recognizes it as a miracle and ceases fighting. Once Luke is killed, no one wants the baby for any political purpose -- politics cease once people are in the presence of the baby: No one wants to do anything but protect the baby, to keep this embodiment of hope safe.

Many are comparing Children to Blade Runner, in that both are semi-dystopian science fiction films that were sadly undermarketed by their studios. But I wonder if the comparison is apt beyond those similarities. At least provisionally, I'd posit that perhaps Children belongs with the recent spate of religious films, particularly those that attempt to make the sacred or holy feel in some sense real. At risk of pushing this too far, I'd compare Children to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Though I liked it, that film certainly has its flaws -- the overuse of slomo, God's teardrop -- it attempted to restore the carnality to the story of Jesus's scourging and death. Often, Jesus's wounds are treated as accessories, holes that he has but not wounds that he suffered, robbing the Crucifixion of its sacrifice. Say what you will about it, PotX presents the Passion and Crucifixion as things that Jesus felt. Similarly, in Children, faith is something that can no longer exist in the abstract, but must be a lived experience -- as Jasper's story about Theo's dead son intimates, and as the reverence for the newborn girl makes clear. The world may have given up hope in humanity -- understandably, since humanity's future appears to have been stolen -- but once it is presented with a living symbol of the future, it immediately, reverently (albeit temporarily) reconnects with that hope, and almost everyone selflessly acts to preserve that hope.

Fun fact about the production: Cuaron read Slavoj Zizek to build the "philosophical and social framework" for the film.