Children of Men

Children of Men is arguably the darkest of the films we’ve watched thus far. While there are certainly dystopian themes present in the film, with a police-state London herding refugees into concentration camps, I think it can be argued that the film is more about an apocalypse than it is a about a dystopia.

Children of Men is set in 2027, where every person on Earth is infertile, incapable of producing children. Because of this global infertility, humanity faces extinction. London, which is where the film begins, is depicted as being one of “stable” cities (if not the only one) on Earth where things are relatively peaceful. The rest of the world, however, has fallen into complete disarray. Though much of it is left to the imagination, one can only assume that the rest of the world went all Mad Max, with people looting and killing because there is no longer a society to stop them.

Then, we have refugees flocking to London hoping for some form of asylum. However, they are denied entry and turned away by London’s military-police. In fact, many of the refugees are detained in concentration camps for reasons not unlike Hitler’s for imprisoning the Jews in concentration camps. In both cases, the victims were detained in order to satisfy and placate the rest of the population.

From the outset, I think it’s obvious that London in Children of Men is a dystopia set in an apocalyptic world. With human society on the decline, London has militarized itself in order to provide its citizens with some semblance of order and peace for humanity’s last few years on Earth. As far as dystopias go, Children of Men’s London has it all: a militarized police, concentration camps, control of the media (one example Monica Martin provides is the opening scene, with the people staring at a screen), and even its own resistance groups.

But despite taking place in a dystopia as well-developed as Children of Men’s London, I feel that the dystopian elements only served as a vehicle for the rest of the film. The story isn’t about overthrowing or subverting the London government, it’s about Kee being pregnant and getting her to Human Project to help further their research into curing the global infertility so they can save the human race.

Had the government gotten their hands on Kee, it’s likely that they would’ve wound up exactly like the government in The Handmaid’s Tale, where they’re the ones with all the power because they’re the only ones who could continue the human race. But that’s not what happens. Ultimately, the London government is as powerless as the rest of the people, unlike the government in The Handmaid’s Tale, where they have a way to produce children. Of course, that’s not to say they aren’t relevant to the plot. In fact, they have a huge impact on the way things turn out. Were it not for the government, there would be no resistance movement. And were it not for the resistance movement, Theo would have never met Kee.