a bore with a slap in the face ending.

B- .. at best.

Well, actually, the answer in both cases is pretty similar. Hope functions as a means of deferring the solution to one's current situation onto some future time, and in the case of Theo, quite literally in the afterlife (after his life).

I wouldn't particularly stress the Christian link were it not for the fact that Children of Men the film is based on a novel which is blatantly and emphatically Christian. Cuaron's CoM is a different work, of course, but residues of that element of the novel remain in the film.

More importantly, given its plotline in conjunction with its context, it's pretty much impossible for Children of Men not to be influenced by Christianity. Like all, and I mean ALL, apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic works, its basis is in Revelation, which, although it was in turn inspired by the prophetic writings of the Hebrew Bible, is unquestionably the central text of apocalyptic works, at least in the West.

The link, though, isn't merely one of indirect influence. Children of Men attempts, among other things, to provide a solution to humanity at a hopeless juncture in its existence. It doesn't really come up with a solution (it wouldn't be a masterpiece if it did), but it posits forth some kind of vague notion involving a sanctuary at sea called the Human Project. Having abandoned religion as a solution, it plunges back right into it. The idea of the Human Project, that something beyond the present whose existence activates hope within oneself, giving one a purpose to strive for, is nothing more than the concept of God re-named.

WAITTTTTTTTTTT


you're not actually interested in post-structuralism, are you? You're just trying to get more posts in this thread!!!

As to the points made in your last paragraph, I'd again argue that it's another case of the film distancing itself from Christianity and God. It's easy to superficially take The Human Project as a metaphor for God, but I personally take it as a literal rejection of God. The film abandons God from the outset, and the source of the human race's eventual - possible - salvation (by way of The Human Project) turns out to be science.

But science is nothing more than yet another hypostate for God.


And a pretty lame one at that.

a bore with a slap in the face ending.

B- .. at best.

Even Quantum String Theory!

I think this thread deserves a poll. So as to collate people's grades of the film in an easily readable manner.

I need to watch it again

I don't trust 16 year old Shack's movie taste

I'm not arguing that CoM doesn't reject traditional notions of God. It's obvious to me, at least, that it does (and I like it more for that, ha!).

The problem is that it finds itself in a bind by doing so. I have to explain it in a round about way: Foucault criticized (implicitly) Barthes and others who celebrated the death of the author in the 1960s, because he argued that when they got rid of the author (and God is the ultimate author), all that they did was to defer the author's authority onto a transcendental anonymity.

Children of Men doesn't go quite that far, because it posits the Human Project as an alternative. But it's not, and it can't be. It's just another mask, like the traditional God, to contain that transcendental anonymity in such a way as for it to make sense to us. For all intents and purposes, it might just be God (even if it is there as a disavowal of God).

The poll is simply a repetition of the one of the critics forum, though.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but your argument basically comes down to semantics. That we can defer rationalisations of meaning and hope and all that guff onto other entities, but that ultimately we're just creating another word for the idea of God.

Which is an awfully theocentric POV, IMO.

I dont know, I think we need a grade higher than an A.

You mean, Theo-centric? I'll stop now.


Em, yes. But that's the big problem that post-Christian/post-theocratic worldviews have to contend with. It's what makes Christianity especially so bloody stubborn. It can contain its opposite within itself with remarkable ease.

This doesn't mean, btw, that this excludes any reading of the Human Project which does not posit it as a substitute for God. It's just that it's impossible for it not to find itself in a paradoxical bind once you equate it with God. Once the connection is rendered explicit, I don't know how it's possible to disentangle them except to put it aside and move on.

Snrubby, a certain someone wants me to tell you that votes cannot be merged.