Children of Men/Pattern Recognition

I just finished reading Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. After having seen Children of Men a few weeks ago, I thought it'd be interesting to contrast the two. Gibson's book is ostensibly about the present but has a futuristic feel to it. Children of Men is set in the future but touches on so many topics that are of concern to us in the present.

I've been a big fan of William Gibson's work since reading Neuromancer a few years back. Neuromancer is a seminal work and introduced the word "cyberpunk" to our lexicon. The rest of his work makes a weird and disjointed near-future world seem real and plausible. In this book, he manages to use that same skill to make the real current world seem weird and disjointed (which it is).

Though written several years ago (right after 9/11), it seemed to anticipate the role of online video, netroots, and blogs. While not talking about blogs directly, the characters in this book submerse themselves in the insular world of specialized online discussion groups, sometimes to the exclusion of real life relationships ... not unlike a lot of bloggers.

Other topics that the book touches on are the role of corporations, trends and marketing.

Gibson's prose can be a bit thick sometimes, but that can be part of the allure. You wade through it not always sure that you are understanding it all but by the time you are done with the book, it all seems to make sense.

I liked this book, as I have all of Gibson's. He's the only modern sci-fi author that I've ever read, though I hope to rectify that, having just bought Snow Crash on the recommendation of several of you.



Children of Men presents dystopic view of the future, where women have lost the ability to have children due to a pandemic and government has a stronghold on the lives of everyone.

Oppression, censorship, brutality, propaganda, war make for unpleasant times but they also make for interesting and provocative cinema. The social and political movies of the the past few years, V for Vendetta, this one, Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, etc. are among the best we've seen in a long time.

It's interesting that the setting of this sci-fi political thriller is again England. True, the source material bases it there but I think there's more to it. You see movies like this and V for Vendetta and you can't help seeing that they are criticisms of America. While England may have some of the characteristics, it's obvious that it is not the main target. England, however, is a safe target in the movies. It gets the point across without seeming like USA-bashing. And obviously the UK is also not without it's sins.

This movie is dark and atmospheric and beautifully shot by Alfonso Cuaron. There is a great group of Mexican directors right now: Cuaron (this movie, Prisoner of Azkaban, Y tu Mama Tambien), Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labrynth, Hellboy), and Alejandro González Iñárritu (21 Grams and ... ahem, Babel).

Despite the movie's despair, there is also a vision of hope. I think this is where Children of Men is vastly superior to Babel. That vision of hope is unexpected and as such is beautiful. That's not to say that is a Hollywood sappy movie. It is so completely the opposite of that. But rather it presents the light at the end of the tunnel without having to spell it out for you and wrap it up all nice and pretty.

The acting is great, especially by Clive Owen and Michael Caine. Chiwetel Ejiofor makes yet another appearance in a movie I like, having also been in Serenity, Love Actually and Amistad.

This is a great movie and undoubtedly will be on my year-end top 10.