Scribbles recommends.... Children of Men

It's the new film staring Clive Owen, based on a book by PD James. In case you didn't know.

I'll spare you any attempt at a real synopsis, save to say that it is a sort of post-apocalyptic Britain set in the near future, where human beings can no longer produce children. Ergo, quite literally no future for the planet. That's the bad news. The good news is that Britain is the only country in the entire world that hasn't descended into chaos. Although that means that everyone in the entire world now wants to come and live here, which poses slight problems for our border control. And it rains even more in the future than it does now, and they don't appear to have road-sweepers or dustbin men anymore.

It's not a film that bothers with details. It's not interested in explaining how things are how they are. All it wants you to do is go on a physical and emotional journey with Clive Owen, who starts off as a cynical man suffering his grim existence without hope, and ends up with him being the saviour of the world. Quite how his character goes from one to the other is artfully done, both in terms of script and acting.

And because the film doesn't bog itself down with explanation, or for that matter with any type of political or sociological worthiness, it shoots along at an impressive pace. From start to finish the film pulls you along, making you want to know what is going to happen next. I was quite disappointed when the end came and the ride was over.

But having said that, it didn't me feeling like I had just watched an action adventure film. It was something more than that. The film messes with your head. It kills characters you expect to live. It seems to reference other films, it references images from the past, it references current conflicts. And so, although you're watching a fictional story set in a fictional future, it resonates too strongly with the real world to be shook off lightly. And so we had a scene that looked like something straight out of Blade Runner, we had the Warsaw ghetto, we had Abu Ghraib, we had a national mourning of Diana proportions, we had Die Hard. We had Polish resistance fighters from the time when films were in black-and-white, sharing the same street as Islamic militants from off the Ten O'Clock news.

And yet it was done with such a deft hand, flashing by as you watched the main story unfold, that you can't be sure any of it was there at all.

The final scene, part Warsaw ghetto uprising, part Gaza Strip, is breathtaking. Shot using long uncut scenes, we follow Clive Owen through the streets where men run amok with guns and bombs. Again, reality and fantasy mingle. It's like watching the news footage on ITN when journalists have gotten unexpectedly too close to the action, and yet at the same time it's so highly choreographed it's like experiencing a piece of modern dance. As a piece of film-making, it is high art. As a portrait of how shitty this world can be, it is thoroughly distressing.

It was a film that took me by surprise. I'd recommend.