Children of Men

As mentioned in the below post, I watched Children of Men over the weekend and didn't think much about it's quality as entertainment. The plot was interesting though, and it's unfortunate they didn't do more with it. Aside from one remarkable scene of extreme violence, it was a borefest. It's not that a movie has to be violent to avoid being boring, but you'd kinda have to see the scene to know what I mean. It seems to be about 10 or 15 minutes long, and appears to be shot all in one sequence with 1 camera that somebody is holding. It follows the main character as he navigates his way through streets and buildings, while gun fire and explosions go off all around him. You really can't see a seam in the filming where there is a cut to another camera or a stop in the sequence. There's even a portion where there are blood drops on the camera lens, and later in the same sequence they are gone, even though there was never a stop in the scene. It was pretty amazing how they did that.

The plot is this; all of humanity becomes infertile and there have been no babies born for over 18 years. Naturally, society degrades into some sort of Mad Max-like post Armageddon Apocalypse.

Would that actually happen if suddenly no more babies being born? Maybe.

Human beings certainly do have a pre-disposition to make the next generation and pass the world on. However, does this continuation of society have anything to do with the lives we live now? I'm hardly the one to ask.

For many people like me, we won't have any kids. Society's continuation is assured through all the good work of the heteros, but it doesn't really have much to do with somebody like me.

In the movie, you could imagine people getting older, and as more people die and are not replaced by the newer generation, there would be a suffocating isolation for those that are left to go on.. and on.. as there are fewer and fewer people.

And so it is with people like me. That's the reason why you see that much of the gay community is very tight knit. For me, whenever somebody in the family dies, it's one less person in my life. I'm not creating my own company by having kids after all... and as I get older, there will be fewer and fewer, barring something happening to me first.

That is the condition that we're faced with and for a person that is a natural introvert, like myself, it can create what appears to be a bleak future, just as it might have appeared to the people in Children of Men. Nobody wants to be the last man standing.

And I'm off to a follow up visit with the doctor to see how my whole surgery thing is going. I've still got some numbness in the roof of my mouth from some apparent nerve damage, but beyond that it looks and feels pretty good.