Children of Men, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, is a dystopian film set in a fictional future world where humankind has been infertile for 18 years. An important character in the film is Theolonius Faron, played by Clive Owen. Theo is the protagonist of the film who moves from apathy and hopelessness to active and responsible in his journey of escorting Kee, a pregnant woman. As an existential anti-hero, Theo’s change and development shows Cuaron’s purpose which is to tell the importance of taking action and to alarm us of the possible issues caused by social indifference and the failure to act. Cuaron achieves his purpose using various techniques including dialogue, camerawork and symbolism.
In the very beginning of the film, Cuaron reveals…show more content… Theo then for the first time takes an action, not only for himself but also for others, that he wakes Kee and her companion up and tries to escape. In this scene, cinema verite is used to track Theo’s actions: the camera ducks as Theo ducks from a car to another to avoid the patrol and to get the key and jumping leads. The long take and low angle hand-held camera dynamically emphasises Theo’s action instead of himself as a figure, which also creates tense to give a realistic experience to the audience. Cuaron uses this technique to emphasise the fact that Theo is taking an action, which is the most important thing one needs to vanquish hopelessness, and consequentially Theo changes his own future. At this stage, Theo takes action mostly because his own life is in danger. However, later at the refugee camp Theo delivers Kee’s baby to show a further altruistic development. In this scene Theo uses his whiskey as disinfectant: the meaning of alcohol to him turns from anesthetic escapism to a constructive item which can be used to help others. The use of symbolism clearly shows Theo’s change as an existential character, that he starts to confront and involve in reality, consciously taking actions and also responsibilities. Kee’s baby symbolises hope to each hopeless individual and also to the infertile world as a whole. Because of Theo’s action, hope is brought back to the world: Cuaron uses the symbolism to demonstrate the significance of taking actions in our life: their will be hope and future only if we take actions ourselves. “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do