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Children of Men (2006, UK/US)
In director Alfonso Cuarón’s bleak but
visually-brilliant, apocalyptic science-fiction chase-thriller:
- the opening scene of white-collar government bureaucrat,
civil servant and ex-activist Theo Faron (Clive Owen) on his way
to work on London's Fleet Street in fascist-run, terrorist-riddled
England in the dystopic year 2027 - in the midst of a civil war
- when a suicide bomber blast occurred a few steps away
- the views of society collapsing after two decades
of human infertility, leading to the film's long and heroic journey
to the utopian Human Project on the coast to protect a miraculously-pregnant
woman, and the scene of the terrifying road-ambush scene - filmed
from the POV inside the car in a long unbroken shot - when Theo's
estranged ex-lover/wife Julian Taylor (Julianne Moore), the leader
of the insurgent underground Fishes revolutionary group, was shot
in the neck and died shortly after
- the scene of African fugee (short for refugee) Kee
(Claire-Hope Ashitey) revealing to Theo her extended pregnant belly
(the first pregnancy in the world in about 18 years) and telling
him that she trusted him
- their thrilling escape from the 'safe house' when
Theo attempted to jump-start their vehicle by coasting downhill
- their seeking of refuge at the hidden-in-the-woods
home of Theo's long-haired, dope-smoking hippie friend Jasper Palmer
(Michael Caine) - and the scene of Jasper's execution (after he had
euthanized his catatonic wife with a Quietus suicide-kit) with his "pull
my finger" joke
- the amazing, single-shot scene of Theo assisting
Kee in the birth of her baby girl in a crumbling, cold Bexhill apartment
building in the refugee camp and internment center area
- the film's most magical moment when Theo and Kee
(with her crying baby in her arms) descended the stairs in the
midst of a bloody siege and uprising (filmed continuously with
a hand-held camera) surrounding a Bexhill apartment building -
and the British soldiers and other combatants stood back momentarily
in quiet awe
- the hopeful final scene in which Theo (wounded during
the skirmish) slumped over in a rowboat and died at the same moment
that they reached the buoy rendezvous point with the Human Project's
ship Tomorrow's appearance in the fog
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Opening Sequence
Road-Ambush
Julian Taylor's Death
Theo's Death
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