Children Of Men Analysis

Children of Men

From the first scene of the opening, we see a crowd of people watching television at a cafe. Whilst watching,  the man walking in (Theo Faron) grabbed a his cup of coffee and walked out uninterested to what other people were watching on the TV. It was a news broadcast claiming that "baby" Diego had just died after being stabbed a fan. Diego was the youngest person on the planet at the age of 18 years. Back at the cafe' there were diegetic sounds of people sobbing and crying to the death of Diego, however, it did not seem to interest Theo at all, in fact, while other people were somber about the news, he was able to keep a straight face about it and remained emotionless with no care of what is going on around him. Theo is one amongst many that had given up after the 1000 day siege.  There was a split second when Theo looked up to the television screen which can be seen from the use of editing and POV shot of the screen from Theo's angle. This shows that he had nothing else to do whilst waiting for his coffee but to look up and see what was going on in the world, yet still caring less.

This opening scene creates a lot of enigma to the audience:

1) Who was the man who had just walked in and out of the cafe?

2) Why is he so uninterested about what is going on?

3) Why is the world's youngest person an 18 year old teenager?

4) Why aren't there any babies being born in the last 18 years?

    5) What happened during the 1000 day siege period?

After Theo walked out of the cafe, he walks to a nearby locker of some sort to place his coffee. As he walks out of the cafe, he budged through the crowd whilst the sound of the television slowly fades out and changes to a robotic sound of a many titantron screens attached on buildings which clearly indicates the future. Moreover, we know that it is the future from the date that baby Diego died which was shown on the TV screen and the font editing as Theo walks out of the cafe [November 16th 2027].   London in 2027 seems dirtier and at the same time, more hi tech. Furthermore, there seems to be more mixtures of culture and race in London which can be supported by the use of pan shot at Theo walks out of the cafe to show a 180 angle from where he walked out of the cafe to the camera following his foot steps and panning again as he approaches the lockers and placing down his coffee. The major racial changes are seen from the vehicles people use. There are a lot of three wheeled motor-bikes like the Thai "tuk-tuk" seen riding around the streets which shows more illegal immigration in London. Furthermore, there is more garbage on the sidewalks and more pollution. What is unique about all the semiotics in the setting is that it shapes the world of "Children of Men" and a foreshadowing by the director to what might happen in the near future. 

 Next, as Theo is putting "alcohol" into his coffee, a bomb went off inside the cafe and walking out of all the smoke, rubble and aftermath was a woman holding her own arm, screaming for help. As he was pouring alcohol into his drink, it suggests that he is a man who had given up and tries every single way of forgetting his past and ignoring society. The use of a depressant drug will help him with that problem  but also tells a lot about the character of Theo in a whole. He is a man who is tired of life and does not care on spending his money or breaking the law anymore because there are other things that are important to society than his actions. Later in the movie, we see him smoking "Ganja" or cannabis which is illegal in many countries, but also another form of depressant to ease the mind.

All of the sudden, a bomb went off in the cafe, and the use of the diegetic "noise" implies Theo being able to hear the impact of the bomb and that it effected his hearing, wiping out the noise in his ears with constant ringing. The editor added the ringing sound of his ears to merge an isolated character of Theo into society. Throughout the opening scene we see Theo being a character who does not care about the world around him, he is detached from others, but when the bomb went off, he flinched with the others as well and was affected by the bomb nearby. Through the use of the bomb, the director brilliantly merged Theo into the movie by the end of the opening scene.