Children of Men Opens in an Apocalyptic

Children of men opens in an apocalyptic future where the world has not seen birth of a child for last eighteen years. Set in 2027, the film presents a very bleak picture of a world that has lost its fertility. Interestingly no reason for that is given and viewers are left to wonder why exactly have all women suddenly become barren. Many American women struggle with infertility and according to statistics, one in eight women would need some kind of fertility treatment to have children. But the situation is nowhere as worse as the film presents. This raises the question as to why would the director choose to present the world in such a dark light? Is he trying to make us think about infertility in general? Was this an attempt to connect infertility with despair and gloom in the apocalyptic world? Is there a theological message woven somewhere deep within the storyline? On closer analysis, we find that there is a little of every one of those links available in the film. The director does want us to ponder the possible expansion of infertility to the extent that no woman can conceive at all. With no future to look forward to, the world has gone berserk and the entire system has started crumbling around us. The only child born after 18 years is closely linked to the birth of Jesus as Kee's husband is unknown and unseen and her child is seen as the savior of the human race.

"Thinking as a Hobby" is an interesting article that helps us understand the three levels of thinking. Golding, the author of Lord of the Flies, says that at the lowest level is the grade three thinker and at the top is grade 1 thinker. Analyzing the film on these three levels would not be easy but might actually be good since it would allow us to see the shallowness of some thoughts and importance of others.

On the third grade, one would think infertility in the film is just that- an issue of childlessness and how without children our lives are so bleak.

On the second grade, one would assume that infertility is not as major an issue as it is made out to be. We can live without children and still have a happy healthy live because a grade two thinker is only interested in looking for contradictions.

On the first level, we have a thinker who chooses to look for deeper meaning and doesn't try to seek contradictions. Instead a person is more interested in seeking connections with higher meaning and seeing the big picture. That's what we are trying to in this essay and have reached the following analysis.

The world is rapidly coming to its very tragic and dangerous end because of lack of a bright future. The fact that we have children reinforces the need for a world of possibilities, a bright future and the existence of a future at all. We need a future and we need to know that there will be one in order to save ourselves from total despair and destruction. Each child that comes into this world brings with him promise of a future and it is because of them, we want to be better human beings, we want to protect the environment and we want our institutions to work. But had there been no children and hence no future, who would we want to work for? This utter lack of purpose in life translates into a world that is filled with despair and that is what we see in the film.

Each new child is the world is a symbol of God's promise that there will be a future and His confirmation that He has not yet lost given up on man. God's hope for man is man's key to redemption.

While the director does present the subject of infertility and connects it to biblical images, there is also this message that man himself is ultimately his own destroyer and his own savior. In other words, man is responsible for his own redemption as Conrad E. Ostwalt Jr. observed: "The modern apocalypse has replaced a sovereign God with a sovereign humanity, and instead of providing hope for an eschatological kingdom, the cinematic apocalypse attempts to provide hope for this world."

But the fact that Kee is finally able to conceive also redirects us to God. It is true that the director appears to connect infertility with limits to what a man can do through technology. The power of man is there but director wants us to see the limits of that power as well. Man can redeem himself by returning to God and not by becoming increasingly dependent on technology. This message is clear from the fact that Kee is pregnant not due to any technology but because she naturally has become pregnant. The infertility of other women is a mystery that director chooses not to delve upon. It is taken as a fact without any supporting causes. We can assume that director wants to connect infertility to limitation of man's power because while man is able to achieve so much today, he is not yet able to create a human being. There is only this much a man can do and once we understand these limitations, we can stop playing God and start focusing on areas that we can control and let God do the rest. Imagine what if some mysterious disease affects all women and they do actually go barren, man has very little power to change the situation then. There are so many women in the world that cannot have a child and despite the availability of new fertility-related technologies, they are still childless. We have heard of women who tried IVF and it failed- women who sought other treatments and yet couldn't take the child to term. If a certain percentage of women are still suffering from infertility and cannot do anything about it despite their best efforts, it only goes to show that man cannot control everything and he must allow himself to acknowledge the presence of a greater power.