I think City of God must have inspired this movie. There are no children in this film, and it takes place in a fictional near future, but the presentation of the effects of violence on the characters achieves a similar gut-wrenching realism. The future merging of the issues of immigration and terrorism is the real center point – the apparent premise of a world gone sterile seems to me to be used as a device to craft a warning about the future of these other, current issues. This kind of movie can easily take the drama and violence too far to retain my suspension of disbelief, and it does, but just a little. Most of it is done extremely effectively.
3 responses to “Movie: Children of Men (2006)”
i had the EXACT same reaction. and i hated the ending, but overall i thought they did a good job creating a not too distant future that really, really sucks balls.
i don’t, on the other hand, get the city of god connection.
I’m not exactly sure either why City of God kept coming into my head afterward. I think I found the styles similar, especially the portrayal of violence.
Now that I think about it, it may just be that I watch very few violent movies at all, and City of God was the last one that was any good…