I went to the Biennale in Venice last weekend and thought about the movie intensely after visiting the Japanese pavilion. If you don't know about it - the Biennale features artists representing specific countries as they transform a fixed pavilion building into their vision. When you walk across the Giardini site, you walk through themes of the globe. Often these themes are overly political and identity-themed, but the simplicity of the Japanese pavilion this year was refreshing.
This year the Japanese pavilion was full of 11lb baby dolls, which a user could adopt and walk around with and interact with in changing stations and sleep and play areas. The intro said: "Babies are born anywhere, regardless of wars, terrors, and boycotts." It made me think how they used to be everywhere and now that birth rates have declined significantly they have become rare, expensive and often parents handle them like some luxurious pet, when they should be 'renewables' of ourselves.
I love Children of Men, I think its dark, prescient, moving and a fantastic technical achievement. Easily one of my top five movies.
I found myself nodding along with everything until I hit these lines:
> Many excellent movies are chase movies! The Terminator (1984) is a chase movie. Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) is a chase movie. One of the greatest movies ever made (according to me), George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), is the purest distillation of a chase movie.
Why do people love Fury Road so much? I watched it in the cinema, and I enjoyed it. I thought it was very colorful, had great stunts, etc. A bit derivative of the second and third movie but whatever. George Miller has a format that seems to work. I was shocked when it was nominated for best picture. Best Picture! Years later I listened to a podcast on the making of it, and got a lot of insight into the struggle behind the scenes, and how difficult it was both on set and in pre-production. I had new found respect for everyone involved. I watched it again with new eyes, and... nope. It's fine. It's got some great set-pieces, but I just don't understand the hyperbole. It is, at best, the 3rd best Mad Max movie
It's a real gem. I've only seen it once, but I still reference this movie at least a couple of times a year. With world fertility rates seemingly all in decline, it only becomes more relevant.
Interesting how the article is not mentioning the (inverted) Christian allegory as if that doesn't even exist. It's not even subtle if you actually watch the film, like that's almost the point of it.
The original book is even more explicit about that, like Theo does a makeshipt baptism on the infant amidst all the fighting.
I'm just at beginning of the article, but I immediately have to disagree with something :)
"...this remains one of the absolute best sci fi movies of the 21st century."
I'd say it's not just one of the best sci fi movies, it's one of the best movies of the 21st century, period. Definitely one of my all time favorites, despite some of its flaws, it wastes no time, has great pace, is a fully contained story and gets its point across very well. And I'm not even talking about how relevant some of its themes are.
> One particularly brilliant aspect I keep thinking about is how the movie ends. We don’t know what will become of Kee and her baby. [...] We want to think Kee and her baby will change things, but we don’t know for sure because the future is—quite literally, in the final scene—shrouded in fog.
When I first saw this movie, I think the last scene was just her with baby and dead protagonist in a boat, in the fog.
But when I rewatched it more recently, there was also the ship they were trying to reach appearing out of the fog.
Did this movie have two different ending versions? Or did I just misremeber or watched a damaged copy? What ending have you seen?
This year the Japanese pavilion was full of 11lb baby dolls, which a user could adopt and walk around with and interact with in changing stations and sleep and play areas. The intro said: "Babies are born anywhere, regardless of wars, terrors, and boycotts." It made me think how they used to be everywhere and now that birth rates have declined significantly they have become rare, expensive and often parents handle them like some luxurious pet, when they should be 'renewables' of ourselves.
I love Children of Men, I think its dark, prescient, moving and a fantastic technical achievement. Easily one of my top five movies.
I found myself nodding along with everything until I hit these lines:
> Many excellent movies are chase movies! The Terminator (1984) is a chase movie. Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) is a chase movie. One of the greatest movies ever made (according to me), George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), is the purest distillation of a chase movie.
Why do people love Fury Road so much? I watched it in the cinema, and I enjoyed it. I thought it was very colorful, had great stunts, etc. A bit derivative of the second and third movie but whatever. George Miller has a format that seems to work. I was shocked when it was nominated for best picture. Best Picture! Years later I listened to a podcast on the making of it, and got a lot of insight into the struggle behind the scenes, and how difficult it was both on set and in pre-production. I had new found respect for everyone involved. I watched it again with new eyes, and... nope. It's fine. It's got some great set-pieces, but I just don't understand the hyperbole. It is, at best, the 3rd best Mad Max movie
The original book is even more explicit about that, like Theo does a makeshipt baptism on the infant amidst all the fighting.
I'd say it's not just one of the best sci fi movies, it's one of the best movies of the 21st century, period. Definitely one of my all time favorites, despite some of its flaws, it wastes no time, has great pace, is a fully contained story and gets its point across very well. And I'm not even talking about how relevant some of its themes are.
...anyway, back to reading.
When I first saw this movie, I think the last scene was just her with baby and dead protagonist in a boat, in the fog.
But when I rewatched it more recently, there was also the ship they were trying to reach appearing out of the fog.
Did this movie have two different ending versions? Or did I just misremeber or watched a damaged copy? What ending have you seen?
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/iea5it/children_of_...