Dave
09-20-2006, 07:56 AM
I saw this last night and was literally blown away.
The film is based on a novel by PD James and is in a near future where no children have been born for the last 18 years.
Based in a future Britain it is chilling how real everything looks, the technology blends seemlessly with the everyday we've seen for years in London. The production design deserves an Oscar. I really believe Britain could end up like this. And that scares me. Directed by a Mexican, he has captured Britain really well, perhaps like Sam Mendes caught America in American Beauty, Alfonso Cuarón saw Britain for it's reality, going beneath the gloss (in fact, ignoring the gloss altogether).
The special effects never seemed out of place and some scenes left you sitting there wondering 'how the hell did they do that?'
As dystopian goes, this is damning of our current ways and does not contain many laughs (although black humour does present itself), but the grim brutality and no holds barred nature of the plot made it more real than any other future based film I've ever seen. This film is harsh, in every way possible, and I loved every minute of it.
The acting is excellent with good turns from Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor (yes I had to look that spelling up) and newcomer Claire-Hope Ashitey. The characters were real, you were there with them every moment, which leads us to...
...the direction. Wow. Directed by Alfonso Cuarón it was simply amazing. Single shots were used extensively, but not with talky moments, with full on action scenes, no cuts. Imagine the opening of Saving Private Ryan without a single cut, all in one take. I want to watch it again just to figure out how he did that.
Nothing's perfect, a scene close to the end seemed a little 'neat' after everything else that had happened, but the end itself was genuine. And the projectionist was on holiday or something, the top of the film was cropped for about 10 minutes and the framing never seemed right after it was corrected, the direction or the cinema's fault, I couldn't say.
I haven't read the book, so don't know how it compares, but I thoroughly recommend the film, just don't expect many laughs.
Dave