revisiting the 9s: children of men (alfonso cuarón, 2006)

[This is the thirteenth in a series that will probably be VERY intermittent, if I remember to post at all. I've long known that while I have given my share of 10-out-of-10 ratings for movies over the years, in almost every case, those movies are fairly old. So I got this idea to go back and revisit movies of relatively recent vintage that I gave a rating of 9, to see if time and perspective convinced me to bump that rating up to 10. Of course, it's always possible I'll drop the rating, but time will tell.]

I first saw Children of Men in 2007, and liked it enough that I taught it in a class soon afterwards. As I wrote at the time:

Alfonso Cuarón is one of my favorite directors. Y tu mamá también is an all-time favorite, and Cuarón’s Harry Potter movie was the only one I thought was any good. Children of Men is a terrific movie, dark, stylish, emotional, interesting. Cuarón and his team manage to get across an awful lot of information in the backgrounds of scenes … very little about the future in this film set in 2027 is explicitly explained, but nonetheless the movie isn’t confusing, you pick things up in subtle steps. When special effects are called for, they are old-school … you don’t see fancy futuristic flying machines, instead you get astonishing single-take scenes that would make Orson Welles proud. I’ve never been in battle, but the use of camera and sound in the battle scenes for this movie come across as startlingly realistic, and more disturbing than heroic. There is some fine acting from the ensemble of actors, moments of wit and humor when it is least expected, and an effective combination of artsy touches and connections to our present times. There’s even a Pink Floyd in-joke, and at one point they play “In the Court of the Crimson King” on the soundtrack.

You can’t keep your eyes off the screen. Alfonso Cuarón creates a believable world and populates it with characters who fit into that world. There aren’t any false moments. I don't have any reason to give it a "9" instead of a "10". It remains as impressive on a third viewing in 2023 as it did when I saw it for the first time. And the depiction of the treatment of refugees is sadly still relevant.