'The Child' and 'Power' as Visual Narrative and Material Symbols in Children of Men

Stumbling upon the film, Children of Men, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, which sports the tagline, “No children. No future. No hope.”, may lead one to suspect the narrative is about (physical) children, or rather the lack there of; however, upon watching the film, and first exploring how visuality is deployed in the narrative of the film, can one begin to suspect that this movie is indeed not about physical children, or even of a particular child. In further inspection, one can actually see this movie as exploring “the child” not as a living being/body, but more as a constructed idea representing futurity, that spans beyond politics, government, resistance etc. In her essay “Imperialism and Motherhood”, Anna Davin explores the history of “the child”, and specifically notes a shift in England during the early 1880’s that made, “the birth rate a matter of national importance…” thus linking “population" to “power” (Davin, 61-62). This shift, she notes, took place when the census of 1881 confirmed falling birth rates, in conjunction with the publication of The Expansion of England, by J.R. Seely, which warned, as Davin wrote, “if the British population did not increase fast enough to fill the empty spaces of the empire, others would…(Others being) rival master races (Davin, 61-62). Davin goes on to explain that this forced the concept of birth rate to one of national importance. “Children, it was said, belonged, ‘not merely to the parents but to the community as a whole’; they were a ‘national asset,’ ‘the capital of a country’; on them depended ‘the future of the country and the empire’; they were, ‘the citizens of tomorrow.’s” (Davin, 61). In relating this theory as “the child” or “children” representing the country’s future, can we correlate the lack of “children”, and “unborn child” (Kee’s baby) in visually representing the narrative that fuels the whole film. We must look at “children” in this film as “narrative MacGuffins”, which move the film along as a device to make you feel something. If “the child” represents “future” and “life”, as Davin would agree, then when placed against and with a backdrop of war, death and politics we experience a an effect of horror. This can be seen when Theo, Kee and the baby walk through the crowd of refugees, resistant forces and military near the end of the film. Visually we see each party (although vastly different) stop. Visually “the child”, used as a narrative device, represents hope and life, which visually stops everyone, and in effect makes us feel something.

Similarly, we can see this same visualization used in the material form (lighting, camera work, costumes, editing) at work in the film. Visually Cuarón sets up a futuristic world that does not involve metallic jumpsuits, hovercrafts or laser beams, but rather one that looks similar to the present world, only darker, more chaotic and as Roger Ebert noted in his review of the film, “tired”. (Ebert) This visual representation can be a metaphor correlated to Michel Foucault’s theory of biopower. In his essay, “17 March 1976”, Foucault argues two types of power, being that of the sovereign which “makes die, or lets live”, to that of biopower which, “makes life, or lets die” (Foucault, 241). Although we see sovereign power visually at work in the film, with England being ruled in police state (as seen with illegal immigrants in cages, etc.) we can also visually see biopower at work on civilization as a whole, which is without hope, and seemingly just letting everyone die. Without children, we visually see most of society, as represented by characters like Theo whom are unshaved and shabbily dressed, hopelessly existing, and in a way just being left to die.

It can also be argued that Cuarón’s camera technique of “long shots” during violent scenes, construct sudden effects of how power is seen in the film. The car scene where Julian is killed happens in one long shot, which ends with the driver Luke then killing two police officers. In this scene we visually see a lot of power taking place. In the “power” entry found in The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literacy and Cultural Criticism it is written that Foucault asserts that, “power should not been seen only as oppressive, that it also enables, especially when employed locally against dominant forms of oppression” (Childers and Hentzi, 239). Hence, in this particular “long shot” we visually see power working in three ways, 1: the “enabling power” (the rebels in the woods) who are “resisting the dominant power” is the force that kills Julian, 2: The dominant power (the police) are able to control the car by pulling it over, and 3: Luke, a “resisting” power, kills the police. The editing technique to not cut away thus shows us power’s multiplicity and in effect makes this scene super violent and extremely sudden, even though it takes place in a “long shot”.

To relate all of this together, watch how visuality works in displaying how the “multiplicity” of power with buffalo, lions and crocodiles plays out in a video that displays a calf (referred to by the bystanders as “the baby”) ultimately survive. By the way, in a very Cuarón-esque way, this video is also one “long shot”. Power is everywhere.

Work Cited:

Davin, Anna. An Introduction to Women and Gender Studies: Gender in a Transnational World. 2^nd ed. Ed. Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan. Ny: Mcgraw-Hill 2002. 60- 6

Childers, Joseph, and Gary Hentzi. "Power." The Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literacy and Cultural Criticism. 1995. Print.

Ebert, Roger. "Children of Men." Chicago Sun Times. 5 Oct. 2007. Web. 13 Sept. 2010.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articleAID=/20071004/REVIEWS/710040307/1023

Foucault, Michel, Mauro Bertani, Alessandro Fontana, François Ewald, and David Macey. Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège De France, 1975-76. New York: Picador, 2003. Print.