Children Of Men vs A Scanner Darkly

In the future, if we’re to believe the movies, we’ve only got a couple options for the survival of civilization: we can live on sterile, all-white movie sets, wearing silver jumpsuits and talking with each other via hologram while we swallow our lunch pills. Or, we can head underground, hoarding gasoline and junk food, letting our facial hair and paranoia grow out of control while the man and the machine control life on the surface.

This past week, however, I saw two movies that painted a different vision of the future: it’s maddeningly, terrifyingly, exactly like…today.

Children of Men is only set a couple decades in the future. If you were to walk in a few minutes late, you might place its setting as present-day Baghdad, but you’d be wrong: it’s Britain. And not only is this future Britain one of suicide-bombings, refugees and crumbling architecture, it’s also the most civilized, peaceful country in the world. Britain is the last hope, and it’s pretty much already a goner.

But something’s missing. In movies like this (and sadder, in their real-life equivalent situations), there are usually children:  children crying in the background, or maybe begging on the streets, or even worse, taking up arms and fighting amongst the warring adults. But in Children of Men, there are no children at all, and haven’t been for years. The youngest person in the world is eighteen-years-old, and he’s murdered at the open of the movie. What’s responsible for infertility in the near-future? Was it something we ate? A biological weapon? Is it because James Brown died? Did someone take sexy away again in the future, after we worked so hard to bring it back this year?

Clive Owen and his perpetual five o’clock shadow star as Theo Faron (and his perpetual five o’clock shadow), a world-weary, exhausted, sarcastic lug who obviously knows the world is going to shit but isn’t going to let it spoil a cup of Starbucks for him. And then he’s nearly killed in an explosion. While still staggering and hearing-impaired, Theo is captured by the Fishes, a group of rebels led by his ex-wife, Julian (Julianne Moore, whose character might as well be named Spoiler, because I simply cannot tell you anything about her.) They need forged documents that only Theo can get for them, and he pretty much has no choice in the matter. Illegal immigrants are being rounded up and sent packing, in an effort to stabilize Britain somewhat, and the Fishes have an illegal they need to get to the sea to meet with an organization called the Human Project, which might not even exist.

Soon, Theo has acquired the documents, and is accompanying Julian and her associates, including the illegal, on their journey to the Human Project. It’s a desperate situation, because the illegal, Kee, is pregnant. No one knows how it happened, but they’re justifiably terrified of what might happen to Kee and THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY if she falls into the wrong hands. Children of Men has a great, diverse cast. Besides Owen and Moore, we have Chiwetel Ejiofor, who becomes more compelling with each film (he also appeared with Owen in Inside Man this year. I hope they get along), as well as Michael Caine (funny, tragic, and with the perfect amount of screen time). Claire-Hope Ashitey and Pam Ferris play Kee and her guardian Miriam, respectively, but aren’t the quiet, suffering earth-mothers you might expect.

You may have guessed that Children of Men is not Back to the Future part 2. It was directed by Alfonso Cuaron, who has given it an aesthetic similar to war-correspondent footage. Long, unbroken takes dominate the film. One, in a jeep, sets a tone of panic and fear like something out of 28 Days Later, as the heroes drive—in reverse—away from gunfire, as the camera acts as an unseen fourth passenger, darting from seat to seat. When one passenger is shot, the camera flinches back some, shocked at what it’s seen. It wasn’t alone. Another scene follows Theo down a battle-filled street, up the steps of a gutted apartment building to the top floor, then back down them again, back down the street, zig-zagging alley to alley, with no edits. Bullets ping on the soundtrack, dust flies, blood hits the screen. But no edits. It’s a stunning moment in a movie full of them. When Theo and Kee walk silently past awestruck soldiers, the movie pauses for a bit, and we all catch our breath. And then, pow, it starts up again, and the horror resumes. It’s a killer scene, not just because of the emotion or drama, but because it’s slightly perverse and funny. It’s the sort of thing that makes you memorize the names of these foreign directors, because they’re the ones bringing the goods lately.

A Scanner Darkly is another movie set in the future; seven years, to be precise. Like Children of Men, A Scanner Darkly has a setting that feels possible, if not inspiring and exciting. Life in A Scanner Darkly is much as it is now. People watch TV, hang out, eat lunch. Oh, and they spy on each other in camouflaged suits made up of constantly fluctuating holograms representing several types of people at once. An undercover cop is never recognized because he looks like everybody and nobody at the same time.

So of course, Keanu Reeves is perfect casting. Reeves is so often a blank slate in movies that a. he’s often cast as morons, androids or slackers; and b. no one ever gives him credit for being any good. I think he’s good more than he is bad (and there are Oscar winners for which the reverse ratio is true, so there), and he’s good in A Scanner Darkly.

Reeves basically plays a slacker moron android here too. He’s undercover, trying to bust open a drug ring, but has taken the drug himself, and is now having an identity crisis of such extreme proportions that other people are beginning to wonder who he is as well. Among his group of holographic, drugged-out slackers is the cast of the best 1994 movie that never happened: Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder, Rory Cochrane and Robert Downey Jr. They’re a great cast, and their common Gen-X vibe only strengthens the storyline of angst, stilted youth, conspiratorial authority figures and couch-denting slack awesomeness. They have a scene where they try to determine if they’ve stolen a bike, bought a bike, been given a bike, or owned a bike that has been threatened to be stolen, given or bought. Downey Jr, is especially home here, ranting and gesturing a mile-a-minute.

There’s not much mystery to A Scanner Darkly. We don’t know exactly where it’s going, and it doesn’t much matter what surprises arise, because the performers are so enjoyable, and the visuals are so lush and hypnotic.

Director Richard Linklater filmed A Scanner Darkly much as he did Waking Life. Actors appear live-action, but are overlaid with watery animation, giving everything a heightened, surreal impression. While in Waking Life, the action was dreamy and fluid (meaning ooh, pretty, that’s all so pretty…zzzzz), in A Scanner Darkly, it’s less a philosophical technique, and more of necessity. The layered animation is a logical way to translate the confusion the characters feel in this world of dubious technology (the advancements are impressive, but the people behind them don’t seem one bit smarter). It’s a cool idea. We’re definitely watching animation, but we’re also definitely watching Winona Ryder, who isn’t doing voice-over, but actual on-screen acting, that has been removed, piece by piece, and replaced, with the same pieces, animated. It never feels like a gimmick really, and after a few minutes, the novelty wears off. What we’re left with is old friends, most of whom cannot be trusted, and one of whom is such a blank slate that trusting him means trusting yourself, your government, your drugs and your future. And if you’ve been to the movies, you know at least one of those things ain’t gonna turn out like you planned.

Children of Men: A
A Scanner Darkly: B