Just came back from watching “Children of Men” in the movies, and it was bloody awesome.

The filmatographic elements were all perfect. The camerawork, done with an unsteady handheld, gave the film a more realistic atmosphere (during one scene, “blood” sprays across the lense, kinda like in “Saving Private Ryan”, except that I don’t think it was supposed to happen that way here; it just did) without ever being unfocused or giving any other causes for annoyance — if you’ve seen some “Battlestar Galactica”, you know of what I speak. Furthermore, the setting and the scenery was brilliantly filthy and naturalistic. Most of London was dilapidated and worn down, as was pretty much everything, and the political climate was described through short parts of news broadcasts, clippings from newspapers in the background, and stuff like that.

And this is where the film’s true brilliance was. For, Like I said in the title, this is science fiction the way it should be. Thematically, certain trends and elements of our current society is taken and exaggerated into the extreme (excepting the infertility; the opposite is more of a problem today, really), and imposed on a future society as if these trends had actually evolved naturally over the span of two decades. The result? Science fiction in the spirit of George Orwell rather than George Lucas; a movie with a setting and a “subtext” (it’s almost far enough from subtle to qualify as plain “text” ) that most of all reminds of the freak child of “V For Vendetta”, “The Constant Gardner”, and “The Communist Manifesto” (without there being any Communist propaganda, of course). The elements that are most exaggerated and the focus of attention here, is the current development of what I often think of as a “Diet Xenophobia”, as well as the “security” measures every Western country seems to be adopting these days, in their completely irrational paranoia. (I mean, heavy security arrangements around Norwegian long distance buses? Come ON; that’s fucking absurd!) I expect that people with less liberal minds than myself might not like it as much as I did, but that’s their loss. (Actually, the friend I watched it with is a member of Norway’s most xenophobic represented political party, and he didn’t seem quite as enthusiatic as me… :roll: )

On top of all this, the acting, the characters, and everything else was perfect, and all in all, I have no other choice but to give it a 10/10.

(I mean, when they bribe me as unshamedly as these guys do — by putting a sarcastic antihero in the hero role, and by playing Radiohead’s “Life In A Glasshouse” during a scene in which the characters of Michael Caine and Clive Owen are getting high on weed — what else can I do? :P)

Oh, and it’s bloody funny too. Witty, ironic and morbid. Just the way I like it.

Dystopia! Dystopia! Oh, how I love thee, Dystopia! :D

EDIT: Oh, and I just had a look at IMDB’s messageboard, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more chaotic MB in my life, and definitively not one where the respect between the posters were so absent. Gee, I think I just realised why I hate large forums…