Children of Hope

               Children of Men explores notions of hope and despair, and we get a tremendous sense of the mood through the dark monotone colors (filters?) used throughout the film, and specifically of the background.  In essence, the background itself is as significant a character as Theo, Julian, or Luke.  Fear and uncertainty are portrayed well through the background alone and in a lot of ways, I believe the whole story could have been told with JUST the background. Zizek mentions the background in personifying the unrest and despair that capitalism had created, and the interaction between the art and the lack of history plays on the issue of immigration (old vs new), and is further enhanced with Theo’s hippie friend Jasper.  He also mentions that the solution to the problem is in the boat “Tomorrow”.  He tells us that hope has no roots, or in other words, we are living and contributing to a downward spiral of self-destruction if we continue to dwell in the background and in the historically-rooted traditions that makes up our government.            

               While I agree that the background had a significant role in the film, I can’t say I necessarily agree with Zizek that we must squint our eyes and view the background in an obscure way to understand its importance.  Rather, I actually felt that the background was not obscure at all, that there were numerous shots where the camera physically focused on the background. I understand what Zizek is saying, and that his words were nothing more than commentary on the way we choose to "not see" what is wrong with society today, but in the film - I got a tremendous sense of interaction between myself, the characters in the "foreground" and the background, therefore one can argue that the viewer is completely immersed WITHIN the background as well.   I also appreciated the juxtopositioning of the art and of the insignificance of its meaning in the new capitalist-decayed world.
               The documentary style filming also highlighted the sense of urgency, as a lot of times, I found myself alertly searching the background for a bomb or soldier, and I also found myself ducking during some scenes.  I also found the single shot style more engaging and lifelike, rather than the traditionally multi-shots.  Actually, thinking back now, there was a very long scene that was shot in one take, I think the scene where Julianne Moore is killed when they are ambushed.  I know this is extremely difficult to do in one take, and it gives it a very realistic sense of time and continuity.  The scene where the baby’s cries momentarily stops the war is eerily hopeful, and had a very spiritual and religious tone to it, but when the fighting continued in a split second, it tells us a great deal of humanity and of the tension that truly fuels our desires to kill rather than to live.  However, I REALLY liked the ending - perhaps the "incompleteness" of the cut and not truly knowing whether or not civilization had been saved is what is needed to fuel the hope required to necessitate that desire to live.