Cuarón's future is now

It's 20 years from today in Alfonso Cuarón's "Children of Men," based on P.D. James' '90s sci-fi novel, and no woman has been able to get pregnant since 2009 nor do they know why. Upon the breaking news that the last baby born has died, the world goes to shit faster than you can say "pigs on the wing." Soon after, we meet Theo, played with a poignant hopelessness by Clive Owen. The scenario requires some disbelief suspension, but doesn't all science-fiction? \nTheo, after some terrific exposition of the world's current condition, is recruited from his melancholy London existence to escort a very special girl named Kee to the coast. She's the first woman to get pregnant in 18 years, and we'd better hope the government doesn't find out. The film pits the British government, which rounds up and cages refugees trying to flee to the island nation, against a "terrorist" organization called the Fishes, which fights for refugee rights. Theo is our anti-hero, trying to avoid both the government and the Fishes just to get Kee to the Human Project off the coast, a sort of Dharma Initiative of fertility testing. All the performances, including the reliable Michael Caine and a brief stint by Julianne Moore, carry crosses of hopelessness and quiet rage, yet the actors are overshadowed by the backdrop of something much bigger than themselves, which is the bleak future in which they're grounded. \nSeveral scenes and set-pieces in the film are literally jaw-dropping, including an extended action take inside a vehicle and an even longer uncut shot depicting the beginning of the Uprising, in which the British government march in to sweep and clear a refugee camp, calling to mind the ghetto liquidation sequence in "Schindler's List." The most impressive work on display here, aside from that of the production designers, is of cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, who was robbed of an Oscar in February. His efforts, combined with the grimy, leftover futurism of Cuarón's imagined UK, are a thrilling example of visceral visual cinema. \nThis one-disc edition may not be loaded with supplements, but what's there has some weight. A few inconsequential deleted scenes breeze by, followed by a cursory look at one of the film's only CGI'ed sequences, but a peek into how the astonishing in-car sequence was pulled off as well as an overview of the film's futuristic production design are worth more than a look. It's the disc's two documentary-style featurettes, however, that work to elevate the art of DVD special features. Comments on the film by postmodern philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek ring as true as a lecture by your favorite sociology professor on his best day, and "The Possibility of Hope" collects the musings of several notable modern thinkers on the various aspects of our possible global existence and works to understand how we can avoid a dire future of our own making. \n"Children of Men," harrowing chase movie though it may be, is, at its core, a political work. One of its most redeeming aspects, though, is that it doesn't take sides. Contrarily, and even though we follow the journey of Theo and Kee from its inception to its presumed conclusion, it represents a frightening vision of the future from a voyeuristic perspective. More so than in any film I can call to memory, Cuarón's imagined future feels more real than imaginary. Steeped in death, despair and chaos, "Children of Men" still champions the difference one human being can make in the midst of it all.