Children of Men

We went to the cinema last night to see a film called "Children of Men" starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine. It is the best movie that I have seen in a while. Set in an apocalyptic future Britain where terroism is common place and refugees from other countries are rounded up, put in cages and shipped off to detention camps like concentration camps. I won't give the plot away but the premise is that there has not been a child born in the world for more than 18 years and Clives Owens character gets caught up unwittingly with a terroist organisation called the Fish. Michael Caine does an excellent turn as a rather eccentric old hippy scientist.

I was rather worried about seeing this as I am not a fan of violent movies but in this film the violence is integral to the plot and is not gratuitous. The most disturbing thing for me is that I can see that Britain could easily end up like this and that thought is terrifying to say the least.

I have always had a fascination for films and books that have an apocalyptic vision of the future - maybe it stems from being brought up during the cold war and with the nuclear threat hanging menacingly over our heads. In the 1970s/1980s we were fed a diet of films like "Protect and Survive" films and booklets and there were serials on tv like "Day of the Triffids", "Survivors", "The Changes", "Quatermass", "When the Wind Blows" and "Threads". My parents were involved with CND on a local level and as a teenager and young adult I went on marches and protests including a big one at Greenham Common, where protesters linked hands around the perimeter of the airbase. So all these ideas about war and destrution have been very much part of my psyche for as long as I can remember.

Anyway this is a film that I would highly reccomend if you like your cinema to make you think as well as entertaining you.