Originally posted to ydnar.vox.com in December 2006.

Films about a fascist Britain are nothing new. However, where V for Vendetta was a bludgeon, Children of Men is a scalpel. It is an extremely violent film, the acts coming with neither warning nor celebration; a bleak comment on race relations, globalization, media, surveillance and xenophobia. In contrast with the film’s gray palette, every scene is saturated with detail: photographs, signs, advertisements, sideband messages reminiscent of the Bolex Brothers’ Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb or Graeme Base’s earlier children’s books. Like the latter, filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón makes clear his contempt for the current war in Iraq, the hypocrisy of western drug policy and immigration law. Children of Men is not only the best film made in 2006, it is probably the best near future science fiction film made in the past 30 years.