I watched this film tonight with the girlfriend. Both of us were gripped and enthralled from start to finish. The real stand-out aspects for me were Clive Owen giving a genuinely accomplished performance and best of all the superb cinematography. Yes, the film is quite dark in places and very drab colour scheme wise but that frayed urban feel really captures the current zeitgeist of defeat and despair inherent to late-capitalist society.
The hand-held camera aesthetic, often over done in the hands of a less capable director and crew, was masterfully handled especially in the long continuous shot inside the building in the refugee slum. I also felt that whilst bordering on the over-stated the momentary halt brought to the bloodletting between the "terrorists" and the army by the sight of Owen and Key bringing out the crying baby summed up visually the films thematic core. That of human life, whatever its ethnicity, is something to be valued and treated with respect. A lesson history tells us we've yet to learn and inevitably never will as our supposed civilised society flounders from one bloody conflict to another. One only has to reflect on our own growing tendency in Britain to shoot, stab and murder our own neighbours in both city and countryside.
On a negative note though I did find the ending a little too abrupt and it highlighted my main criticism of the film over all. Whilst Director Alfonso Cuarón may wish to bring the background to the foreground and really tell the story through images I felt this technique contributed to a lack of depth being given to the main characters. However, this is just a personal response as I was moved by the film (the isolated school scene in particular) and could have even been moved to tears I suspect if the characters had engaged my sympathy to a greater degree by the film allowing me to get to know them better.
Oh well, guess I’ll have to buy the original novel by PD James...
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