Sons of man (film)

the Sons of man ( Children off Men in original version) is a film of Science-fiction Post-apocalyptic American, carried out by Alfonso Cuarón and left on the screens in 2006.

Film adaptation of the Romance éponyme of P.D. James, Sons of man place the spectator in the middle of a Dystopie whose framework is the the United Kingdom in prey with chaos. In this world devastated by the Pandemia S, the War S and the Terrorism, the totality of the women became sterile thus leading humanity to the extinction.

The film

General presentation

Summarized of advertisement

In a near future, the human ones cannot have children any more. The youngest human being on Earth dies. In this world of despair, an young woman has been pregnant, the first for twenty years. Theo Faron, under the impulse of its ex-wife will take care of her protection in this England where the conflicts of interest are multiple and dangerous…

Complete summary

It is the November 16th 2027, and one reports in all the media throughout the world the murder of that which one called “Diego baby”. 18 years old, he was more the young graduate on Earth and the last listed newborn.

Theo Faron, old a political activist become employee, appears little touched by this news whereas the world cries the young man. It leaves a coffee with London just before a bomb pulverizes it. The government shows “Poisson” ( Fishes ), a terrorist group which fights for the right of the immigrants. Stirred up by the explosion, Theo returns visit to his/her friend, Jasper Micrometer caliper, old a Cartooniste political, alive in the countryside, and sharing its time between the culture of the Cannabis and the assistance to his catatonic wife , old a Photographe of war, tortured by the government.

On its return to London, Theo is kidnapped by Poisson, carried out by his ex-wife Julian Taylor. Their son, Dylan, died following the Pandémie of Grippe of 2008. Julian offers 5.000 £ to Theo in exchange one leave-to pass for a African young person Réfugié E named Kee. To obtain this one, Theo returns visit to his/her cousin Nigel, a minister high-placed in the government and person in charge of the “Arch of Arts” ( Ark off Arts ), a building where are stored works survivors of the chaos which seized the Earth. Theo manages to obtain it but is seen constrained to accompany Kee in its tour. Luke, a member of Poisson, Theo conduit, Julian, Kee and a woman, Miriam, with the first checkpoint of their voyage. They are taken in ambush and Julian is mortally touched with the neck. Continued by the police force, they find refuge in an isolated farm where Luke is named new leader of Poisson.

Kee then reveals in Theo it why of their tour: she has been the first expectant mother for eighteen years. Julian and the purpose of Poisson are to entrust it to “Planetary Revival” ( Human Project ), a group of scientists secretly based with the the Azores and of which the goal is to look after the Infertilité. Kee acknowledges to him that it is the only one in which it has confidence because Julian did itself to him confidence. She proposes to him to bring it to the Planetary meeting of Revival but he refuses, doubting the existence of such a group. Being given the death of Julian, Luke suggests in Kee remaining with Poisson until his childbirth. Theo advises to him to go in a hospital but Poisson rétorquent that the government will take to him its baby with fine policies. The young woman accepts this last suggestion and all will lie down.

Right before the paddle, Theo is awaked by cries, rises and discovers that Luke is responsible for the ambush and made assassinate Julian by Patric, a member of Poisson, and his accomplice, wounded in the ambush. The purpose of that was to enable him to keep the baby of Kee and to make use of it like tool of Propagande and symbol for the rebellion. Theo also hears that one orders to kill it. It will find Kee and escapes with it and Miriam towards the refuge To marble, Poisson with their continuation. Miriam, in this one, explains why the appointment with Planetary Renouveau is envisaged in a boat, the Tomorrow , with the refugee camp of Bexhill. To marble proposes to them a plan of infiltration in the camp with the assistance of Syd, a corrupted police officer to whom it sells cannabis.

Poisson finally manage to find the house To marble, however hidden well in the forest, and this last retains them while Theo, Kee and Miriam flee. It is killed out of coolness by Luke when it refuses to say which direction took the runaways. The point of meeting with Syd is fixed in an abandoned school. It leads them to Bexhill by making them pass for prisoners. There, they are taken along in a bus where Kee starts to have contractions. It draws the attention of a guard but Miriam is sacrificed by distracting it with false religious incantations. It left manu militari the vehicle and taken along. Theo and Kee, only, find Marichka, their contact with Bexhill, which provides them a room. Kee will be confined there during the night. The following day, Syd, which must take them along to the boat, tries to take the child but Kee and Theo manage to flee with the assistance of Marichka. Shootings burst in the camp and the government is on the point of sending the tanks. Poisson manage to enter in Bexhill and capture Kee and its baby.

Marichka and Theo are separate and it continues only Poisson inside a building besieged by the British army. It finds Kee with the right in the middle of a shooting where Luke and Patric are taken. Theo tears off Kee with the hands of Luke, which draws to him above. Wounded and supporting Kee, Theo tries to leave the building. The tears of the baby leave the occupants of the building stupefied. The soldiers, who enter the building, discover the child and the shooting ceases. Theo and Kee leave, passing in front of the soldiers and the rebels, fixed in a tacit cease-fire. Hardly parties, a rocket fuses and the confrontation begins again.

They find Marichka, which leads them to a boat to join the Tomorrow , but she refuses to accompany them. The fighter plans arrive on Bexhill and bombard the Theo camp rows up to the point of meeting. Kee then sees blood in the boat and believes that it is wounded. But it is Theo which bleeds and which crumbles, mortally touched by a ball. Right before the death of this last, Kee reveals the name of his/her little girl to him: Dylan. At this point in time the Tomorrow emerges from the fog and recovers it with the child…

Data sheet

Production and scenario

The adaptation of the novel of P.D. James had, at the base, summer written by Paul Chart and, later, rewritten by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby. The producers Hilary Shor and Tony Smith, which develops the project, include Alfonso Cuarón in this one in 2001. This last, with the collaboration of the scenario writer Timothy J. Sexton, started a new rewriting of the scenario as of the end of the preceding turning of the realizer. Not wanting to make a simple illustration of the book, Alfonso Cuarón lute only one summary of this one, knowing that Timothy J. Sexton had read it in entirety.

The production was not launched directly because Alfonso Cuarón left on another project. This turning, accepted in the course of road, enabled him, according to him, to more easily adapt for Sons of man to realities of a turning to the the United Kingdom, because it was already about a British project.

During the development of the scenario and production, Alfonso Cuarón used as model of company in rebuilding the film the Battle of Algiers of Gillo Pontecorvo (1967), than it showed with its main actor Clive Owen to express her vision of film. For the philosophical and social aspect, the realizer read the work of Slavoj Žižek and other work in the same spirit. He was also inspired by the film the Dawn of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (1927), from which will come, perhaps its desire for carrying out many Plans-séquence for film.

Places of turning

To build its futuristic world, a London having the patina of 2027, the film Clockwork orange of Stanley Kubrick (1971). When Alfonso Cuarón was preparing the film took place the attacks of London. He then refused to leave the city whose film could not dissociate was also reorganized on the example of the Tate Modern, which inspired a comparison with the film the red Desert of Michelangelo Antonioni (1964). The visual effects were directly created with the Post production by the studios Negative Double and Framestore CFC, which was the only means of managing to create such an environment according to the Réalisateur, was selected in April 2005 and spent several weeks to collaborate with Alfonso Cuarón and Timothy J. Sexton to work out its role. Impressed by its creative implication, the scenario writers of film worked with him on the whole of the scenario.

  • Julianne Moore : Julian Taylor, leader of Poisson, rebel movement, ex-wife of Theo Faron.

The actress was selected in June 2005.

  • Michael Caine: To marble Micrometer caliper, old political Cartoonist become farmer of Cannabis, friend of Theo Faron, married to Janice.

The actor states to have based his interpretation To marble Micrometer caliper on John Lennon in film.

  • Claire-Hope Ashitey: Kee, immigrant young person a priori of Ghanaian origin , first expectant mother since eighteen years.

The role was created by Alfonso Cuarón, marked by the theory according to which all the human beings rise African ancestors and by the statute of the underprivileged people. Thus, the child of immigrant African would rewrite the history while becoming the origin of the rebirth of humanity.

Secondary roles

It was chosen by Alfonso Cuarón because this one had appreciated its service in Retour to Cold Mountain of Anthony Minghella.

  • Peter Mullan: Syd, corrupted police officer dealant the cannabis To marble Micrometer caliper in the refugee camps;

  • WFP Ferris: Miriam, midwife, friend of Kee;
  • Danny Huston : Nigel, minister high-placed, cousin of Theo Faron;
  • Oana Pellea : Marichka, alive Gypsy in the refugee camp of Bexhill;
  • Philippa Urquhart : Janice, old Photographer of war become catatonic following tortures of the government, woman To marble Micrometer caliper;
  • Paul Sharma: Ian;
  • Jacek Koman : Tomasz;
  • Maria McErlane: Shirley;
  • Michael Haughey: Mr Griffiths, owner of Theo Faron;
  • Michael Klesic: Rado;
  • ED Westwick: Alex, wire of Nigel;
  • Juan Gabriel Yacuzzi : “Diego baby”, youngest human being;
  • Tehmina Sunny : Zara;
  • Martina Messing : Birgit;
  • Gary Hoptrough : Simon;
  • Maurice Lee: Samir;
  • Denise Mack: Emily;
  • Faruk Pruti : Sirdjan.

Music

See also: Children off Men (music)

The music of film was diffused in the shape of two albums: a band carried out by various artists ( Children off Men - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack ) and the original soundtrack of film ( Fragments off has off Prayer from the motion picture Children Men ) of John Tavener, which contains pieces of other traditional type-setters or contemporary like Georg Friedrich Haendel, Gustav Mahler and Krzysztof Penderecki. In spite of that, four songs of film do not appear in those. In addition, Problematic Map off the , of MUSE, and Hoppípolla , of Sigur Rós, was used at the time of publicities and of the Bande-annonce S to promote film but did not use for film in itself.

Analyzes

Photographs: the art of the sequence shot

The film uses many Plans-séquence in which proceed complex actions. Longest are the following:

  • the ambush in the car;
  • the childbirth of Kee;
  • the scene where Theo, captured by Poisson, escapes in a theater from Urban guerilla warfare.
This kind of plans, very delicate to turn, use sometimes, in the Sons of man , connections to preserve continuity. Thus, according to Frazer Churchill, supervisor of the visual effects, the sequence shot of the final battle was carried out in five catches. In the same way, the sequence shot of the ambush was it into six and out of three different places. According to the realizer Alfonso Cuarón.

The plan-séquene where Clive Owen penetrates a besieged building was prepared during fourteen days and was turned in five hours. At the end of this plan, blood squirts on the camera. This detail was preserved by Alfonso Cuarón on the councils of its director of the photography, Emmanuel Lubezki. According to Clive Owen, one of the difficulties major of this kind of plan was due to the fact that they were prepared much but were to appear to be seized in the fire of the action.

At the beginning of the project, the first idea of Alfonso Cuarón to maintain continuity was regarded as unrealizable by the experts of the production. Indeed, outgoing of the turning of Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban , it had suggested using special Effets. Its director of the photography also categorically refused owing to the fact that their common ambition was to film the Sons of man like a Documentaire taken on the sharp one and thus, to authorize the realizer to turn the scene in the car. A vehicle had to be modified to allow the seats and the windshield before inclining itself to let the camera move without obstacles. A team of four people was posted on the roof of this one to turn the scene, of which Emmanuel Lubezki and an operator camera.

At the time of this sequence, an ambush followed by a Race-continuation, the actors was not prevented an arrival in mass of aggressive observers. According to the realizer, who wanted the emotions most natural possible, Julianne Moore was terrified, Clive Owen was afraid to have wounded the stuntman with motor bike which attack them and which is mown of a blow of door and Chiwetel Ejiofor was wounded with the face by a glare of glass.

Timothy Webber, of the company of special effects Framestore CFC, was responsible, for its part, of the sequence shot of the childbirth during three minutes and thirty seconds; and this, at the same time on the level of the setting in scene, but also of the addition of the newborn in synthesized images. Treatment of the immigrants in film, through that and the methods with which they are tracked and imprisoned (cages…), the Shoah recalls clearly. There is also another reference to the atrocities Nazis when, in the Arch of Arts, Nigel dines in front of the fabric Guernica : Miriam is encapuchonnée in Bexhill and the same installation as one of the prisoners victim of tortures of the Prison of Abu Ghraib. One evokes there also the Prison of Guantánamo or the Maze. According to some, the film also gives a resonance to the Attentats of September 11th.

One can also notice a similarity with the cover in Cinéma truth of the Guerre of Iraq. One finds also many references to the modern islamist movements, in particular through the term Intifada , tagué in Arabic mis-spellt on certain walls. Moreover, one assists, at the time of film, with a procession of men with green stringcourses drawing with automatic weapons and stressing the words Allahu Akbar like a prelude to the revolt of the camp of Bexhill. It is here about a precise reference to the Hamas and the israëlo-Palestinian Conflit. Alfonso Cuarón states to have tried, as far as possible, to cross the references, itself reference to the book the Farm of the animals of George Orwell. On this same powerplant, one can see one of the many winks of film to the artists Guérillero S. the graphic artists are also with the honor it film since Jasper is old a political Cartooniste of reputation in retirement. One can see his drawings when Theo is at this one. The known as drawings were carried out by Steve Bell.

The hope

the Sons of man makes hope one of its major topics as of the first sentence of the French trailer by an interior counterpart of Theo Faron:

I remember more very well when I started to lose hope and even less when everyone started to lose it.

It also puts this topic in relation to that of the Foi, which makes here vis-a-vis futility. On the symbolic system plan, despair is represented by the logo of film above: a Fetus inside an eye pouring a tear, the red color perhaps evoking blood.

The cause of the Infertilité is never explained even if one evokes an environmental destruction or a divine Châtiment. This blur was voluntarily cultivated by Alfonso Cuarón, which refuses to give all the keys to the spectator. The novel at the origin of film described what occurs when a population cannot reproduce any more and explains it by the infertility of the Homme S. the film grants this one the Femme S.

For Alfonso Cuarón, Theo Faron incarnates the share of humanity of film, its hope “is just hidden under a make-up of immobility”.

The title, from the start, poses the Religion like important topic of film, already present in the book éponyme. The subject of film indeed seems the Allégorie Christian Psaume 90 of the Bible of the king Jacques of which here the third Verset:

You reduce the mortals in dust, and you say: Turn over, sons of man!
P.D. James describes his novel like a “Christian fable” whereas Alfonso Cuarón, does not design to him its film like “a glance on the Christianisme” and this same if it does not exclude the Spiritualité: it is not interested in the Dogmes which are a major symbol of Christianity.

The film having been launched the day of Christmas to the the United States, Kee and Theo were compared has Joseph and Marie and the qualified film of “contemporary account of the nativity”. Moreover, the fact that Kee is pregnant is revealed in Theo in a cattle shed is an allusion to the scene of the Nativité. To that, the fact is added that, when the other characters see Kee and his baby, they pronounce the name of Jesus-Christ or make the Signe of cross.

To underline these spiritual topics, Alfonso Cuarón ordered a fifteen minute old piece to the British type-setter John Tavener, Christian orthodoxe, whose work had as subjects: the maternity, the Birth, rebirth and the Redemption with the eyes of God. The name of the piece is Fragments off has Prayer ( Fragments of a prayer ).

The Lexique religious also is very employed, in vast a Syncrétisme, throughout film:

  • subdued ( mother in Sanskrit);
  • pahi mam ( protects to me in Sanskrit);
  • will avatara ( saver in Sanskrit);
  • alleluia (of Hebrew).

Lastly, following the last scenes and of the generic , there is a Prière Hindou E for the Paix in Sanscrit: Shantih shantih shantih . One finds also these words at the end of a Upanishad and with the last line of the Poème of Thomas Stearns Eliot: vain Earth . The prayers and the invocations are numerous besides throughout film, in particular through the character of Miriam.

As for the quasi-legendary organization Planetary Revival, it can be conceived like the upgrading capability of human comprehension, the film of Ridley Scott (1982), by disallowing any proposal for a advanced technology and by minimizing the elements of Science-fiction present in the year 2027.

The Réalisateur was based on images reflecting our time, choosing to add technologies innovating starting from an inflection of the line of time in 2014. What interested it in this film, it was not “to let itself distract by the future”, but “to transport the public in another reality”.

Thus, in the tower of Bexhill, Theo carries a shirt of the Olympic Games of London of 2012 (to be noted that the international sales, the sales of DVD as well as the televised diffusions are considerable remunerative sources). Here a table summarizing some of the results recorded with the Boxoffice by country:

The film saw its result improving thanks to DVD, where it engrengé approximately 26 million dollars, and this only in the American rental network.

Reception

Criticisms

The film was overall well accommodated by criticism.

In Slate Magazine , one proclaims “the arrival of a large realizer” and “two of the sequence shots among more the virtuosos ever seen”.

In France, according to Télérama , the speech of film is “ragor and seizing”. For Inrockuptibles , the Sons of man has an energy “moving because shaking and incarnated”. Première almost thinks of holding “film of anticipation of the decade”. However, according to the Books of the Cinema , nothing “exceeds the infantile stage of the illustration”. For Studio Magazine , it is “a lesson of cinema”. Lastly, with regard to Ciné Live , they summarize their opinion in a word: “respect”.

To accentuate this reputation, of many Web sites of reference in the cinema join together excellent notes given by the Net surfers for film, as on Internet Movie Database or Rotten Tomatoes.

Rewards

The film was named with many rewards minor or major and obtained some from them:

  • BAFTA 2007

    • BAFTA of best photography for Emmanuel Lubezki
    • the BAFTA of best the production design for Geoffrey Kirkland, Jim Clay and Jennifer Williams
    • Named with the BAFTA of the best special effects for Frazer Churchill, Timothy Webber, Mike Eames and Paul Corbould

  • Festival of Venice 2006

  • Price of criticism :

    • Price of the Society National off Critics Film 2007
    • Price of Los Angeles Film Critics Association 2006
    • Price of Chicago Film Critics Association 2006
    • Price of Vancouver Film Critics Circle 2007
      • Price VFCC of the best film
      • Price VFCC of the best realizer for Alfonso Cuarón
    • Price of Austin Film Critics Association 2007
    • Price of Online Film Critics Society 2007

  • Price of associations of professionals of the cinema

    • Price of the American Society off Cinematographers 2007
    • Price of Visual Effects Society 2007
      • Named at Price VES of the best visual effect of the year for Timothy Webber, Lucy Killick, Andy Kind and Craig Bardsley for the sequence of the birth
      • Named at Price VES of the best side visual effects for a film for Lucy Killick, Frazer Churchill, Timothy Webber and Paul Corboul
    • Outstanding commendation award of the production of Art Directors Guild 2007
      • Named with the Outstanding commendation award production for a science fiction film for Jim Clay, Geoffrey Kirkland, Gary Freeman, Malcolm Middleton, Ray Chan, Paul Inglis, Mike Stallion, James Foster, Peter James and Stephen Forrest-Smith
    • Price Real Golden delicious of Motion Picture Sound Editors 2007
      • Named at the Price Real Golden delicious of the best assembly its of the music for a film for Michael Price
      • Named at the Price Real Golden delicious of the best assembly its of the sound effects and the foley for a foreign film for David Evans, Richard Beggs, Bjorn Ole Schroeder, Sam Southwick, Tony Currie, Iain Eyre, Nick Lowe, Harry Barnes, Stuart Morton and Peter Burgis

Appendices

To go further

Internal bonds

External bonds

  • the list of hang English used by the film ( No children. No future. No hope. , The last one to die please turn out the light. …).
  • the list of the places where the film was made.
References
  • English Official site
  • French Official site
Media
  • French Trailer
  • Interview of Alfonso Cuarón and Clive Owen
  • American Poster
  • French Poster

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