The entrance essay that I wrote to get into the school from which I received my undergraduate degree (Drew University) was all about how, not only was I convinced that Armageddon was right around the corner, but how I assumed that humankind, with all its simultaneous fragility and fury, would be wholly accountable for triggering the demise of its own species. Such an optimistic child of eighteen I was, wasn't I? I think I'd just watched some sort of new TV version of War of the Worlds (not the vomitously exploitative Tom Cruise version-- but some remake of the original radio play) the previous night and found myself newly troubled with a fear of the end of the world.
And truly, it seems that we humans have been scared to death that the sky was gonna fall on us pretty much as long as we've been sentient. This is why we have the Book of Revelations, which is, you know, a rather old document. And there are plenty of Doomsday predictions that predate Revelations, right? But there are also plenty of new anxiety-ridden films that seem to be sprouting up lately, aren't there? But the interesting part is that there seem to be two distinctly different tenors arising out of this more recent incarnation of apocalypse-fear.
On one hand, you've got the Left Behind boys. For any of my illustrious readers who might not have boned up on their Jesus-freak lit lately, Jerry Jenkins and Tim LeHaye are the two guys responsible for a laughable series of books-- and now movies, starring none other than Kirk Cameron-- about The End of Days. When I worked in a bookstore, the people looking for these books often also bought a lovely little piece of work entitled The Faith of George W. Bush-- and truly, has there ever been a more sure sign of impending death and destruction than the fact that the same folks who fear The Rapture have no fear whatsoever of our gigantic screw-up of a president? Seriously?! But all kidding aside, the idea behind these books is that, very soon, The Faithful will be lifted right outta their kitten heels and SUVs and taken straight to heaven, while the rest of us losers will be abandoned to the discretion of demons and fire-breathers and syphilitic lepers with bad breath and scabies. Oh, man! I can't wait!
And on the other hand, you've got another sort of dire prediction arising from an egghead-ier demographic--namely, scholars of ecology, economics, anthropology and sociology. And, of course, Al Gore! And Alan Moore, who wrote the graphic novel V for Vendetta. And this brings me to my recent viewing of Children of Men. In many ways, this film is just another branch in the intellectual genealogy that includes all those folks like Orwell and Bradbury and Huxley and Rand and so on. But it's basic tweak is that humankind has been struck barren-- the question of whether this infertility is the product of pollution or nuclear fallout or divine punishment being exacted upon us is never fully answered, but we do know for sure that any and all members of our species are dropping like little radioactive flies-- and we can't seem to produce any replacements-- and it's our fault!!! In and of itself, the story is compelling because it feels timely and portentous, but then, most stories of this nature feel that way to me.
What's really and truly remarkable about this film, though, is its technical craftsmanship and artistry. There are several very carefully choreographed, very loooooong shots which build such a palpable sense of the characters' desperation that I found myself leaning forward off my couch several times. There's one scene, towards the end, in which, early on in the shot, blood gets spattered on the camera-- and doesn't get wiped off for a good five minutes as we watch our incidental hero (Clive Owen) duck and cover and scramble and trip and wriggle through and over and around the rubble of some English city that has become a bombed-out refugee camp. Frankly, I'm generally unimpressed with special effects in movies-- particularly those of the CG variety. But a carefully orchestrated synthesis of technical maneuverings and actorly emotiveness... well, OK, I bought it-- 100% bought it. And while I was completely aware that what I was watching was just so much filmmaking artifice, that artifice didn't , for once, manage to chuck me right out of the story in the way that most effect-heavy movies usually do.
Now, to make a more explicit contrast between the Left Behind movies and Children of Men, I'd like to offer that the former is uniquely American while the latter is pointedly British. American fundamentalist Christianity has taken on a curious countenance of primitive superstition. It strives for a purity of belief that cannot be dissuaded with any sort of evidence to the contrary-- and frequently invents mythologies that explain away that which cannot be accounted for in a hardline biblical interpretation. Truly, its singleness of mind is remarkable. And it is simultaneously a long, ominously black viper wriggling across the underbelly of American culture and a laughable, kitschy subject of derision -- like Elvis memorabilia or something.
Children of Men, on the other hand, in its best Queen's English, posits that England will be the last bastion of human civilization, and, as a result, all remaining survivors of nuclear holocaust and global warming and pestilence and strife must beg pitifully for entrance into Mother Britain. Indeed. Early in the film, as our hero boards a bus, we note a mounted TV screen on the bus that, in clear tribute to the Orwellian charactization of mass-indoctrination, runs an advertisement that has a series of pictures of the ways other countries around the world met their demises and then flashes a clever slogan: "England soldiers on." While I do not find it all that far-fetched to think that the belching, pawing, fossil-fuel drooling behemoth that is the current incarnation of The United Sates of America would be one of the first to fall in apocalyptic times, I am just a smidge skeptical that the Brits will be the ones left standing. I mean, Tony Blair's still on our side for the time being. This does not bode well for them, I think.
However, this movie is also able to use its Anglophilia to brilliant and pointed end. The final scene (yep, it's me, your favorite spoiler, once again) has a girl-- who's just birthed the first baby the world's seen in 18 years-- in a tiny rowboat, in the middle of a fog, off the coast of England. And she's being picked up by a boat run by this mysterious organization called the Human Project, allegedly, the saviors of humanity. But what I found so striking about this image is that it's so clearly a Return-of-the-king moment. Mists? Off the coast of England? Is it not our very Arthur reborn, and just in the nick of time? I thought it was a particularly well-conceived and cleverly executed way to end this movie. And had it not been so very British, I'm not so sure that this sort of referencing of a particularly nationalistic sort of mythology would have played nearly so well.
Also of note, in the bonus material on the DVD, there was a little documentary full of assorted eggheads opining on the end of the world-- and I highly highly highly recommend this documentary. Because these economists and ecologists and sociologists are all using their respective vocabularies to say essentially the same thing, their conflated message is moving, terrifying and elucidating. And there's this one great character of a guy--with a strong Eastern European accent and one of those lisps that makes him whistle all his S's-- who has a very interesting (though much different from my own) interpretation of the boat scene at the end. OK, really? this short-form documentary is the best part of the movie, in my opinion-- that is, if you enjoy watching nerds get excited about their respective fields of expertise, particularly if that field of expertise has a political angle. And I for one am not ashamed to admit that excited nerds get me all excited, too.
Oh. Yeah. I've probably just implicated myself in nerdiness here, too, huh? Yes, and I OWN that!
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