03/09/2006

Children of Men - UK/US co-production (Skyline Productions Ltd, Hit & Run Productions and Quietus Productions) directed by a Mexican filmmaker (Alfonso Cuarón) and starring an English actor (Clive Owen) – was greeted with applause this morning by critics and audiences alike.

For his latest film, the director of the third instalment of the Harry Potter saga (The Prisoner of Azkaban) adapted a novel by renowned British mystery writer P.D. James, that presents an apocalyptic not-too-distant future in which humans can no longer have children and are thus doomed to extinction.

Owen gives a strong, detached performance in the high-budget film. "He is an unusual character,” said the actor. “He’s so passive, the opposite of the conventional hero. It wasn’t easy to play such a reluctant character, who has no hope, no desire to be there, in that awful reality, someone who has given up on everything."

Children of Men depicts an ultra-racist England, besieged by illegal immigration and continual terrorist attacks, with realistic scenes of violence shot in a documentary style.

Is it science fiction? "To me, this is not a pessimistic vision of the future but a realistic one of the present”, said Cuarón, a 2001 Oscar nominee for Y tu mamá también. "We never aimed…to speculate on the world of the future. We used the future as a convention but we wanted you to feel in the present. For the scenes of conflict, I showed my collaborators photos of Bosnia and Palestine. We were searching for a non-glorified violence, and to present something that’s happening in front of our eyes".

The film, which also stars Julianne Moore, Michael Caine and Claire-Hope Ashitey, will be distributed in the US by United International Pictures

(Translated from Italian)