The film Children of Men was set in England in the year 2027 and is considered to be a post modern film because of its intertextual references. We can only describe the film as post modern because it isn't always clear of what’s happening and only uses the intertextual references in places. The main storyline of the film is that there is an unexplainable infertility problem that doesn't allow any children to be born in any part of the world and hasn't for 18 years. Due to this crisis the world has descended itself into chaos leaving many of the government parties in tatters as many people then move to England as the only country that is just about still stable.
One of the intertextual references for Children of Men is that it borrows from lots of different genres to mix into one big overall genre. Sci-Fi being the most obvious choice for Children of Men as the main genre but doesn't utilise many conventions that we would associate with it. Its set in the future and theirs a threat to the human race but that is about it because it doesn't explore any issues related to science or technology. Children of Men can be considered as an action, adventure, war, documentary, science fiction, drama or a road movie.
It is considered as an action film because of the many scenes of car chases and blood that is spilled. War is another genre that can be related because of the explosions and big weapons that are used in the destruction of many of the camps. Adventure is used because of the many places that they go to as they kept on the move to different places, as the same can be said about a road movie because they end up with different ways of travelling to each place that they end up at such as car, bus, on foot or by boat.
A very typical feature of post-modern texts is that the film was full of intertextual references such as in Children of Men, Pink Floyd, Guernica and Banksy's Michaelangelo sculpture of David. In the world that we live intertextual references such as this where most media texts make frequent references to other texts. Spotting the intertextual references rewards the audiences cultural capital.
A feature of post-modernism thought is that we should challenge the traditional boundaries of high and popular art. Popular culture such as graffiti, street art, pop music, TV etc. is equally as important as high culture such as opera and classical music and fine art. The first piece of art seen is Banksy's Michaelangelo sculpture of David, Picasso's Guernica and the reference to a Pink Floyd album. In Children of Men’s point of view Cuaron seems to be pointing each one out as pointless because they don’t mean anything because they aren't going to do anything to stop the human race from extinction.
Another feature of post modernism is the death of grand narrative from which the narrative is what explains why things are as they are because it seems that technology and science in some ways have gone backwards. Religion is a grand narrativeand in Children of Men we see that religion is the basis for much of the conflict that we see. Science is the loss of the film because it cant explain what happened after Children of Men had finished because the woman was left to board a boat with the youngest child in the current world but did that show the change of the infertility disaster because one child out of one mum isn't very reassuring.
