Children of Men

Realism is an overly-used concept of British cinema. We praise films for being a ‘classic slice of realism’, or ‘gritty’, but what is more important is not its effectiveness, but its imagination. Children of Men is littered with realistic imagination. Its dystopian vision of infertility is one which, as far as I can recall, is unique, but its true strengths lie within the constructed political and social contexts in which it is grounded in. Such wonderful touches such as the advertisements reminding the Londoners that missing infertility tests is illegal, the faded and worn London 2012 jumper that the central character, Theo, wears, or the Tate gallery which is now inaccessible to the public, really seem to anchor the film’s broader bleak perspective of the London we all know now, the London of bright lights, of entertainment and of times-gone-by.

However, the film’s greatest (and bleakest) perspective is its treatment of immigrants, the abhorrent way in which they are openly treated as second-class, and the fact that the Britons clearly turn the other cheek to this blatant miscarriage of justice. It makes clear that London is a wonderful, vibrant city for people to flourish and start again, but it then destroys this myth in the blink of an eye. When viewing the film for the first time, one is shocked and perturbed by the clear breach of Human Rights that would inevitably be present if the film were set in contemporary London, but what makes this political and social stance even more troubling, is how it hardly feels far-fetched. It’s not a great leap of imagination to think that if the events were ever to become true, that British governments would detain and imprison immigrants in oppressive conditions, in order to selfishly protect their own population. And it is this bleak prescience which makes the film feel even more shocking and, ultimately, more realistic.