Offspring of Human Persons

Children of Men held up well to a second viewing. It's really more of a well-done suspense film than anything else, but the messianic overtones do add a certain enjoyable weight. (There's a reason this was our "Christmas movie".)

Most of our post-film discussion was spent analyzing various plot points and whether we bought the internal logic of the behavior of characters and groups of characters in the film. To me, it worked, at least in the flow of the narrative. It's interesting to quibble over afterwards, but nothing jarred me out of the flow during the viewing.

One jarring note that several people noted was the presence of droplets of blood on the camera lens during the last bit of an extended action sequence. It didn't bother me when I saw it in the theatre, but enough people have mentioned it to me since that it seems like a poor choice by the filmmakers to leave it in. There's no question they must have seen it. Perhaps they hadn't the budget to reset and retake the whole sequence. Or maybe they had many takes and this take was the best in a variety of other ways. Can anyone think of another reason why they might have chosen this? Maybe there's some postmodern cleverness I'm missing. (Even if there is, I'd be surprised if the cleverness was worth jarring so many people out of the narrative dream.)

I think this still stands as one of my top 3 from 2006, along with Pan's Labyrinth and The Fountain. I'll be putting together my Best List from 2007 soon, too, perhaps even before our next movie, so keep an eye out for that.