Click on the link below to download a frame for analysing the opening of the film ‘Children of Men’.
Film-Opening-Children-Of-Men.doc
‘It’s just an idea for group work deconstructing an interesting text (especially because, unusually, this one starts in the middle of the disequilibrium, rather than establishing an equilibrium first of all, so is good for narrative theory. Also, our “hero” is rather unheroic (he doesn’t return to the aftermath of the bomb to rescue people, and appears to be using the bomb as an excuse to take a day off work, etc.)
Then there is the mise-en-scene of a futuristic London - not a Blade-Runner type, almost unrecognisable future, but one which is just subtly different from our own experience, but only enough for us to notice the similarities and make assumptions about the nature of the society represented (the rickshaw suggests all sorts of things about multi-cultural society but also suggests something about the planet’s resources - like many dystopias, it would appear that fuel is scarce (compare to other dystopia films such as Mad Max of course, where this is the central theme).
Then there is the clever use of the screen on the tube train and the patriotic bit about England standing alone… It makes a good induction day topic.’ by Caroline Bagshaw
