Watched: Children of Men

So I wrote about the book MONTHS ago, but to recap, P. D. James’ dystopian thriller about a world in which men become sterile, centers around Theo, who becomes wrapped up with revolutionaries opposed to the British establishment, which is really focused on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain at the cost of human rights and justice. One of the revolutionaries is found to be pregnant, craziness ensues.

The film takes the books title, character names and a few skeletal plot points, but is otherwise an almost entirely different story. Theo is not a professor of English, but a cynical, depressed public servant. The world he lives in does not have a Utopian surface covering major violations of basic human rights, in fact the loss of human rights is right on the surface, as Clive Owen travels through dark, gray sketches of an almost destroyed Europe.

With such stark differences, it's easy to leave the book behind and take Alfonso Cauron's film at face values. As expected, the colors are carefully controlled, the cinematography is beautiful, the transitional scenes of people simply interacting without the pretext of plot exposition, and the focus of the story thrown onto a backdrop meant to reflect human injustice we see in our own world today.

It's no wonder than, that Cauron opted to change the revolutionaries moving through a world of secret governmental oppression into composite characters moving head-first into a war zone.

What's missing? The theologically deep conversation found in the book, but that's hard to translate to film.

But where the film lacks in James' intelligent dialog, Cauron EXCELS in visual symbolism. Great film all around.

Watch out Deutschland! We're on our way!

So it came a little sooner than we planned, but we're heading off to Cologne in less than three weeks. And just to make you INSANELY jealous, here's a picture of our accommodations for a two-night trek down to Bacharach.


That's a castle that's been converted into a hostel, and we'll be sleeping inside it.

But for the most of our stay we'll be staying at a joint run by some lovely ex-pats in the tourist haven that is Cologn (Köln to the locals). We're looking forward to touring the town via our personal guides, including a trip to a chocolate museum and The Dom, which boasts a new window designed by Gerhard Richter. It's been somewhat controversial given its minimalism and non-traditional approach, but I really like it, and it seems to represent the era in which it was designed and constructed better than a more traditional look. Peep it:


So basically it's randomized square pieces of colored glass, making the whole thing look like a mass of pixels. Eat that modern look, National Cathedral!

To our family preparing to introduce us to their new European home, our perspective has been shaped entirely by stereotypes from Kraftwerk and Sprockets and we'll expect no less... you'd better have black turtlenecks when we get there.