Richard Linklaters A Scanner Darkly shows us the nearer future when 20 percent of the U.S. population is addicted to Substance D. The film introduces us to Robert Arctor (Reeves), a distressed undercover cop in Californias Orange County whose addition to Substance D leads him down a path of paradox as his neurons gradually fry, and he finds himself investigating his own alter ego.
Although visually quite different A Scanner Darkly has the clean, homogenous look of Orange County, while Children of Men shows blighted cityscapes rife with poverty, violence and despair both films commit to the same essential vision. Unlike Blade Runner, Gattaca, Equilibrium, or other dystopian fantasies, the future isnt ultra-modern and filled with fantastical technologies. Instead, the world looks pretty much like it does now, with a few differences in terms of key technologies like television and computers. This makes the future seem much more real and closer to us than futuristic visions that almost completely re-imagine our world. Eerie plausibility makes it easier to have a stake in the harrowing stories.
Orwells Shadow
Interestingly, the dystopian future of both films makes use of what are by now tropes of the genre, but nonetheless important and relevant. George Orwell casts a long shadow, of course, but in the specifics we see some differences. A Scanner Darkly is the brighter film, firmly entrenched in a classical law vs. crime perspective. Its bit more hopeful, but the undercurrent of pervasive police surveillance adds an understated creepiness. Children of Men follows in the same vein of the gloomy future Britain dreamed up by Alan Moore in V for Vendetta: dictatorship fuels a hatred for anyone who is different from the Golden English Ideal. Along with Pans Labyrinth and the recent film adaptation of V for Vendetta, theres an unmistakable trend in cinema to showcase fears of government run amok. While A Scanner Darkly doesnt quite cash in on this particular sentiment, Children of Men revels in it. But its not preachy. Theres no soapbox lesson in the film to tell us the obvious. Instead, its a case of showing without telling, fleshing out a chilling environment and revealing how it affects the characters.
Cuarons direction goes a long way in reinforcing his vision of the world. Although he overuses jerky camerawork, distracting at times, for the most part he gets the cinema verite style spot on when needed and something more formal when not. Children of Men is almost like a documentary – a documentary with a few breathers to get to know the many interesting, very humanly portrayed characters better. Extraordinarily shot action scenes, involving chases and gunfight battles, are sometimes brutal and relentless, but again in the style of a documentary more than the melodramatic style that Guillermo Del Toro uses in Pans Labyrinth.
Linklater offers something more extravagantly stylized in the form of rotoscoped animation. Like Cuarons film, he offers compelling imagery to drive home the story. He also gets unforgettable performances from his lead cast.
The Loss of Meaning
But beyond rather obvious directorial accomplishments, which include praise-worthy performances from lead members in the films respective casts, we can also see a broader thematic kinship between the two films: the loss of meaning. In Children of Men, people have no hope for the future because, without children, there is no future. In A Scanner Darkly, the loss of meaning is of the more personal kind as it stems from the ravages of drug addiction. Interestingly, neither film indulges wide-eyed optimism that might come across as false and overly sentimental. Yet, they also arent above offering a twinkle of hope by their stories end, albeit in different ways. A Scanner Darkly is fundamentally a tragedy borne out of a terrifying moral choice. Children of Men takes the path that, to avoid spoiling anything, is best described as noble.
If Children of Men distinguishes itself as an outstanding film instead of a really good film like A Scanner Darkly, credit goes to its ability to surprise, even to shock, and keep the suspense going right until the end. The humanity of the films characters is so poignantly captured, complete with unexpected flashes of humor, that it succeeds as a visceral film better than A Scanner Darkly succeeds as a blackly comic, cerebral film. But really. Quibble, quibble
Technical Quality: ** (out of two)
Gold star!
Children of Men. Written by Alfonso Cuaron, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby. Directed by Alfonso Cuaron. Starring Clive Owen, Michael Caine, Julianne Moore, and Claire-Hope Ashitey.
