"Children of Men"

[qos]

I went to see the movie Children of Men this afternoon with _storyteller_, and I strongly recommend it.

The premise is that all human women have become infertile approximately 18 years previously (dogs, cats, cows and other animals continue to breed). The world is in a state of collapse as our already existing problems are heightened by the awareness that human life is about to come to an end. Into this world-wide despair comes a young woman of color, an illegal alien in England, who is pregnant. Fearing that the government will take her baby and pass it off as the child of a rich citizen, the girl is taken in by a resistance movement which promises to get her out of the country. An everyman, played by the always-excellent Clive Owen, becomes her coincidental guardian.

There's a lot to like about this movie: fine performances, intelligent script, marvelous cinematography. But the movie was important for me because of one brief but powerful scene.


Somewhat to my surprise, the young woman, Ki, has her baby in an internment camp, and Clive Owen's character Theo has to get her out. As they make their way through a building that is the site of a battle, the infant starts to cry. People who have not seen a baby in at least 18 years, people who believed that there would never again be another human baby, are entranced as Ki moves down the hall. They sing, they murmur prayers, they reach out to touch the tiny foot poking out of the blanket. They weep.

When Ki and Theo start down the stairs, they encounter English soldiers coming up to do battle with the resistance fighters who are also in the building. Their weapons are up and ready, but when they see the baby they too are stunned to silence and wonder, lower their weapons, and let the child and mother pass. One man shouts into a headset to his companions to cease fire.

Ki, Theo and the baby emerge from the building to face an entire company of soldiers who would have shot the grown-ups without hesitation, but who are powerless in the face of the baby. Two of them go to their knees, crossing themselves.

Although I am a mother myself, I had never before really 'got' the reverence for woman as life-bearer, never really felt the sacred power of the mother, especially in the face of the warrior. I had never before understood the profound hope that a baby embodies. I had tears in my eyes as I felt the new awareness go through me.

Will this make a difference in my life going forward? Perhaps not. Most of us who want children (and I am acutely aware right now of those who are exceptions) are able to conceive. I have never defined myself or my value by my fertility or my status as a mother, nor do I intend to. Woman's cycle of fertility has never been part of my spirituality, nor will it become one.

But I will remember that scene, and the power, and I will not take certain things for granted anymore, and I will listen to certain stories with a deeper, more reverent understanding than I was able to previously.

ETA: For a reviewer's take on the movie, see _storyteller_'s post here

Comments

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Too often that aspect of femaleness is used against women: anti-abortion activists, battles over birth control availability, rapes, questions about what a childless woman "is waiting for", pressure on mothers to not work outside of the home, etc. Even in movies, it is made into something inconvenient and ugly and embarrassing and worthy of jokes. It's interesting to know there is a novel and movie out there which portrays it as something powerful and sacred.

That novel is one of many I own which I have not yet read. I may remedy that oversight this weekend.