come rain or come shine

[tea_and_ink]

Children of Men….

 

Just saw it. And oh God, that was touching. I actually sobbed there. Alfonso Cuarón plus Clive Owen should be a chemical formula, a mathematical equation, a physics postulate. Really.

 

I loved everything about it. I love how people were just people, each surviving in whatever way they could, knew how or were allowed to. The little white ball thing was brilliant, that’s showing as opposed to telling, that’s them being a couple, being friends, partners, lovers, it speaks of intimacy and trust.

 

The girl being scared and so, so brave because no matter what, she kept going. I’m not sure I’d had been able to go that far, but then again I’m not a mother.

 

The baby’s kick story was so perfect. It made me smile so much.

 

The movie is about sacrifice, about doing the right thing because it’s what feels right, it’s what your heart tells you to do. It’s about survival and the human condition, where nobody knows anything for certain, so we just do what we know best.

 

No villains here, just people fighting to stay alive just a bit longer, just one more second. And somehow I feel that those refugees at the end, those soldiers, they really didn’t care what came after, because they lived to see that moment, to hear the baby’s cry. I believe that was the peak of their life expectations, all things considered.

 

The final scene, the little boat so small and at the mercy of the waves, the bombs going off, him teaching her how to wind the baby, his words. Hope floats; life finds the way through death. Always.

 

It doesn’t matter that we never had any information, any certainty on why did everything happen, how did things go so far, because that’s not what the movie is about, the whole point is that boat and the young mother telling her baby they were safe, they were gonna be okay.

 

It’s about faith. How the girl believed that she and her kid were going to be safe, even if she didn’t know a thing about the people coming to rescue her. How the guy put his everything in the line because his ex-wife asked him to, because he felt it was real; the way he believed in what his ex believed just because she believed in it. How said ex-wife trusted enough in him to call him and ask for his help; the faith she had, the confidence that he’d do what was necessary.

 

There are some heroes left among us, I think. They just don’t ride in on white horses anymore (did they ever?) and at the end, they’re tired, so tired. But that’s what makes them heroes.

 

I am in love with this movie. The visual quality is typical Cuarón, charged with meaning and layers. That scene where the nurse is telling how she was there when everything started, with the falling leaves and the girl framed by the broken glass of the window, how the woman describes the beginning of the end, to call it somehow. And what is autumn, if not the beginning of winter? But there is also so much beauty in Fall, so much poignancy to the fact that never do nature look as full of life as it does while is dying. Does that make sense? I hope it does.

It was beautiful, made me laugh, made me cry, made me think. It's a real work of art.

Comments

[1grl-revolution.livejournal.com]

I saw this movie not too long ago. I loved it too. It was so beautiful when they were walking down the stairs in that old building and all the soilders and everyone just stopped fighting to stare at them. I love Clive Owen. And I didn't know that AC directed until the end- I was totally impressed. *g*