Two Cents is a Cinapse original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team curates the series and contribute their “two cents” using a maximum of 200-400 words. Guest contributors and comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future picks. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion. Would you like to be a guest contributor or programmer for an upcoming Two Cents entry? Simply watch along with us and/or send your pitches or 200-400 word reviews to [email protected].
We all know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and all that noise, right? There are tons of Christmas movies from neo-classics like Elf to old-time favorites like A Miracle on 34th St to Hallmark’s 1000 new films each year to that Hot Frosty movie on Netflix that’s getting all the buzz. We have all seen these and we all have our favorites and least favorites. And, each year there are hundreds of film bros who tell you that Die Hard is their favorite Christmas movie, too. This is a valid selection, for sure… at least, in our eyes… as Christmas is in the eye of the beholder. So, this year, in the spirit of John McClane, we present some other films that are secretly Christmas films. – Justin Harlan
The Pick: Children Of Men (2006)
Alfonso Cuarón writes/directs an adaptation of author P.D. James’ novel, and the result is the greatest film ever made, according to our Editor In Chief. Read on to hear our reflections on a new nativity.
Featured Guest
Abby Olcese is a film critic and the author of Films for all Seasons: Experiencing the Church Year at the Movies.
It may not even occur to some folks that Children of Men might belong in the “actually it’s a Christmas movie” camp. I was one of those people for years. I finally had my head turned right thanks to Filmspotting and Think Christian’s Josh Larsen, who wrote about it as such in his book Movies Are Prayers. Alfonso Cuaron’s film has so many parallels to the Nativity story that I ended up writing about it as a Christmas movie in my own book Films for all Seasons.
First, there’s the obvious element of the character Kee’s miracle pregnancy, which kicks off the plot. That pregnancy is revealed to Clive Owen’s character, Theo, in a barn. In a great bit of “HEY THIS IS A METAPHOR,” Theo mutters “Jesus Christ” in shock at seeing Kee’s pregnant belly. Kee is on her way to a group called The Human Project who are trying to find the cure for worldwide infertility, and Theo ultimately ends up becoming the Joseph to her Mary — ensuring the safety of a world-saving child that isn’t his, and that child’s mother.
Kee gives birth in a refugee camp, not a stable, but this still isn’t a place you’d want a child to be born. She’s exposed to the elements, crowds of strangers and violence. The baby’s arrival temporarily puts an end to that violence, in the famous scene where Theo leads Kee and the baby out of the bombed-out building they’re sheltering in. We get the movie’s version of a “silent night,” which lasts all of five minutes before bombs start going off again.
What I like most about Cuaron’s repurposing of P.D. James’ novel, however, is the way it considers the birth of a savior as a radical act. I’ve always understood Christ’s birth the way Mary does in the Magnificat when she says God has “cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.” It’s an event that upends the established order and clears the path for a new way of life. This is true in Children of Men as well. In this world, the future of humanity comes in the form of a refugee woman of color and her baby girl, who carries the hope of future generations. The film’s racist, xenophobic future dystopia (informed by our own racist, xenophobic present) is about to get wiped off the existential chalkboard.
The Team
Ed Travis
I believe Children Of Men is the best film ever made. A prophetic nativity. One of the greatest stories ever told. It had an immediate impact on me upon theatrical release, but over the years I’ve granted it GOAT status. This allows me to recommend it often, as when people find out I’m a movie person the next question is almost always “what’s your favorite movie?”
Set 18 years into an infertile future devoid of hope, Children Of Men is about everything, in the way masterpieces often are. Packed into its modest runtime are potent meditations on chance versus fate, the use of fear to rally the people, extremism, immigration/deportation, art and preservation, and the end of the world. But most importantly of all, Children Of Men is about hope, and where hope comes from, even in the midst of the end of all things.
The nativity is an inherently revolutionary tale of God himself coming to live in the body of a human being, born as an immediate threat to power, born an outcast, born both humbly, nay, ignobly, and yet, with a celestial significance. Children Of Men offers us a deeply grounded, gritty, street view of a hope-drained and collapsing world that experiences an impossible new nativity in the form of Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), a lovely young Black woman, considered an illegal in Britain, who is carrying the hope of all mankind in her womb. We’re brought into Kee’s journey through Clive Owen’s Theo, a burned out husk of a bureaucrat who used to be an activist and a father. Theo’s fire is relit as he makes increasingly desperate sacrifices to guide and protect Kee and her baby to connect with The Human Project, mankind’s final bastion of hope (science) in a collapsing system. Thrilling and efficient in every frame, Children Of Men is engrossing and exciting, told with incredibly subtle long take sequences of harrowing peril for our holy forged family. But it’s the sacrifices and choices made by Theo, Kee, and others surrounding this new holiness in the world that make Children Of Men great; make it sacred. Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Luke, a revolutionary, feigns reverence, but would kill to use Kee’s baby as a flag. Theo repeatedly and consistently risks everything he has to protect and nurture Kee and her new miracle, whom she names Dylan (a girl, this time) in honor of Theo’s lost child.
It’s impossible to sum up a masterpiece like Children of Men in a blurb, but the film only gets more prescient, more prophetic, as humankind appears to steer increasingly headlong into fear, hate, and exclusion. Even if miracles come, we must nurture, protect, and sacrifice to bring fragile hope from the margins to a desperate world that can’t survive without the beauty of the outcast.
Frank Calvillo
It’s not much of a surprise that Ed should choose Children of Men, given its religious symbolism and the fact that he’s our resident Jesus guy. I hadn’t revisited the film (or even thought about it, actually) since its release in 2006 when it tried to stand out in the midst of so many other end-of-year prestige titles. I don’t know if time has been kind of Children of Men, but in many ways it’s certainly caught up with it. The film’s themes of an epidemic, news headlines detailing the deaths of children, and a police state way of life, have all become par for the course in the 2020s.
Children of Men makes many parallels to The Nativity Story, but in ways which don’t always hit you on the head, making this a highly compelling retelling of perhaps the most famous story in the world. The religious side was never going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but within it lies the movie’s ultimate theme; hope. The journey Clive Owen’s character leads everyone on is plagued by a myriad of dangers, but it’s a journey which is never anything short of necessary. Alfonso Cuarón documents this journey through some of the most captivating camera movements of the mid-00s, further cementing him as a true cinematic maestro. Atonement may be driving Owen’s Theo with regards to his own tragic past, but it’s also the belief that at the end of this journey is the light that will end the darkness. Through the seemingly never ending bleakness of Children of Men, it’s the idea of hope that remains; it’s importance, vitality and the possibility of what it can lead to.
Spencer Brickey
Man, I haven’t revisited this one in forever, and had forgotten not only how bleak and harsh the whole affair is, but that it may be one of the best films in illustrating the feeling of that decade.
Existing in a classic “sci-fi future that is really just our world with a few tweaks”, Children of Men drops us into a quiet apocalypse: a world where no new children are born. Taking place a few decades into this slow roll extinction, the world is a vicious, mean place, where everyone is just waiting out their days; some fill them living in the past, some spend them trying to hold onto the beauty of the world just a bit longer, and some want to get it over with and burn everything to the ground.
Not to do a 1:1 comparison, but it isn’t far from the mindset many had in 2006. Just like how the ‘70s cinema reflected a world that was still reeling from Vietnam and Watergate, cinema took a dark turn in the mid 2000s as the world turned sour. After the “golden age” of the ‘90s, where it felt like a “happy ever after” to the century, the 2000s started off rough, and got meaner. 9/11, wars throughout the Middle East, violence across the world. By 2006, the world seemed to be going to hell in a handbasket, and the classic question came up; Are we the last generation? Is it all over?
In Children of Men, Alfonso Cuarón takes that question and makes it a reality; what if we actually were the final generation? In doing so, he creates a world of resignation, where effort is useless and relationships fleeting. But, true to the genre form, there is a glimmer of hope; a pregnancy. A world that’s completely lost is still able to produce some hope, some possibility of turning things around. In 2006, that seemed like a pipe dream, but we made our way out.
I say this last bit as context to our current moment; after the election results, that same “last generation” question has started to come back up, and watching this film in this climate definitely highlights the nihilism. But, just as Children of Men shows hope in a hopeless world, I too believe we’ll find our way back out of these dark times again, as well.
…YOU KNOW THAT’S ACTUALLY A CHRISTMAS MOVIE, RIGHT?
To ring in the Holiday Season, the Cinapse team has assembled all of our favorite movies full of Holiday Cheer–all while pretending to be anything but a Christmas movie. Our list for Noel Actually includes Sylvester Stallone action epics, Medieval twists of fate, a whimsical anime take on the Biblical Magi, the rebirth of Humanity, and of course, Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman–ensuring December has a wide spectrum of cinema for the nice and naughty alike to enjoy.
Join us by contacting our team or emailing [email protected]!
12/30 – Batman Returns
And We’re Out.
