Practice Question – Children of Men
Question 1: Discuss the way the exposition or the resolution of a text studied enables the audience to understand the ideas it conveys.
The film, “Children of Men” directed by Alfronso Cuaron portrays the chaotic world in which people are dealing with the consequences of the infertility. The film upholds common ideologies and issues which is relevant to the present world and this becomes prevalent towards the ending. Towards the ending of the film, Cuaron intensifies the portrayal of the idea that despite the negative aspects and issues existing in society, hope can bring change and possibly end it all. Through the use of narrative and visual conventions, the resolution allows the audience to interpret and understand that hope can influence great changes in one’s life and future.
Alfronso Cuaron ends the film with Theo’s death and the birth of the baby and enables the audience to form their own conclusion. The ending scenes where Theo is seen to be bleeding and holds Kee’s hand, in that particular scene, Theo says, “You keep her close, it’s gonna be okay.” Theo’s dialogues symbolises the idea of hope and how it will influence something in future. It allows the audience to understand how the child’s birth will change the world as it will give the citizens the hope to move forward and perhaps end infertility. and its causes. Although Theo’s tone seems to convey a sense of worry however at the same time illustrate the relieve or perhaps a sense of hope. As both of them had managed to survive the dreadful shootings in the previous scenes, Theo’s tone conveys how overcoming the difficult circumstances has given him further hope to save Kee and her child. It illustrates to the audience how hope plays a significant role in influencing certain aspects as the film progresses. The audience this way recognises how the hope has brought about the change in Theo’s attitude and is able to compare his characteristics from the beginning. The dialogue implies to the audience that hope can bring about courage in one’s attitude and this can lead to changing one’s perspective and also influence changes to problems in society. The holding of the hands also symbolise a sense of relieve and the audience is able to make connections with Theo’s dialogues and his gestures. Therefore, the dialogues representing Theo’s attitudes or emotions are one of the main aspects that contributes in the audience’s understanding of the how hope has influenced change.
Throughout the film Cuaron outlines several issues within society which still has relevance to the present world. Amongst many issues portrayed in the film, terrorism seems to be qu...
