Every shot in 'Children of Men' that is 45 seconds or longer.

[Amr Rahmy]

from the first scene, the camera movement is not motivated, we are not following and/or seeing the character pov, when he's going out of the bar or when the camera rotates around the subject for the next event in the shot.

we were supposed to see the world from his perspective, but the camera had a mind of it's own and knew what would happen next.

i don't remember the entire movie, but i remember it was very boring and very stretched.

 

[refocusedmedia]

It is a brief establishing shot of the world the story takes place in. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[Amr Rahmy]

nothing wrong with it when it's done right. and it's was done right in a lot of movies when we see the main character going in or out of a location(it's usually in, and we usually get that opening 2 door, or back door. it's usually a crane shot, it's done so many times and timed perfectly that it's been cloned and copied in music videos).

but in that shot, the camera decided to stop, go in the opposite direction to the main character, look at something that did not exist at the time, was not timed correctly, and then finally turn around to catch up to the main character only to rotate around again for something about to happen that did not happen yet.

so in both times the camera is not concerned with the character we were supposed to follow, we are not seeing things from the characters perspective like we were supposed to.

sometimes people watch the movie with the blind preconception that the movie is good.

 

[jghenderson]

from the first scene, the camera movement is not motivated, we are not following and/or seeing the character pov, when he's going out of the bar or when the camera rotates around the subject for the next event in the shot.

we were supposed to see the world from his perspective, but the camera had a mind of it's own and knew what would happen next.

i don't remember the entire movie, but i remember it was very boring and very stretched.

So what would you prefer? A camera that only ever looks at the character? A cut every time something happens to prevent the camera from being "unmotivated"?

I think for this story, the camera choices made by Cuaron and Lubezki were brilliant. The camera moving around, seemingly of its own will, allows for the viewer to be immersed in that world more than any other film I can think of. There's so much going on within the frame that the viewer always has something to look at, and everything that he/she does look at adds depth to the film. For this reason, I think it's a film best seen multiple times. Every time I see it, my love of it grows because I notice something else I never saw before. If the film did not have long takes or did not have a roaming camera, the viewer wouldn't have access to nearly as much information about the world.


By the way, who ever said we were "supposed" to see the film from the main characters perspective?

 

[Christopher Daniel Walker]

Editing is the strongest tool available to realise a scene, a character and tone; a long shot can disrupt your best tool for storytelling. When people talk about the cinematography in Children of Men it is more often about the length and complexity of a particular shot or another. Anytime your attention is drawn to the camera while watching a film it interferes with the narrative; you begin to think about the timing, the rehearsal and blocking of the shot. And for what? What greater purpose does a long shot accomplish over cutting during a scene?

That's not to say that a long shot is always wrong, but it has to serve a purpose either to a character or advancing the narrative. Look at Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights or Hitchcock's Young and Innocent. What is the driving force behind each long shot in Children of Men? Because I don't see one. They work like technical exercises, not artistic-driven choices. All I've heard about Cuaron's new film Gravity is that it's made of several long shots and effectively removes any kind of artful cutting whatsoever. I've never understood the furore about a one-shot movie, either, whether real (Russian Ark) or stitched together with invisible edits (Silent House). It's not so much a gimmick as it is about bragging rights.

Film-makers shouldn't deprive themselves of the most basic and effective tool in narrative film.

 

[jghenderson]

Editing is the strongest tool available to realise a scene, a character and tone; a long shot can disrupt your best tool for storytelling. When people talk about the cinematography in Children of Men it is more often about the length and complexity of a particular shot or another. Anytime your attention is drawn to the camera while watching a film it interferes with the narrative; you begin to think about the timing, the rehearsal and blocking of the shot. And for what? What greater purpose does a long shot accomplish over cutting during a scene?

That's not to say that a long shot is always wrong, but it has to serve a purpose either to a character or advancing the narrative. Look at Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights or Hitchcock's Young and Innocent. What is the driving force behind each long shot in Children of Men? Because I don't see one. They work like technical exercises, not artistic-driven choices. All I've heard about Cuaron's new film Gravity is that it's made of several long shots and effectively removes any kind of artful cutting whatsoever. I've never understood the furore about a one-shot movie, either, whether real (Russian Ark) or stitched together with invisible edits (Silent House). It's not so much a gimmick as it is about bragging rights.

Film-makers shouldn't deprive themselves of the most basic and effective tool in narrative film.

Well see I disagree with that on a fundamental level. I believe, like Tarkovsky, that the most basic element of a film is the time pressure within a given shot. It is that pressure that gives a film it's feel and emotion, not editing. Editing in the vein of Eisenstein leads to literary films that are more like puzzles. Once you figure out what a given cut means, that's it. There's no more to get from that piece of film. You've figured it out. A long take, however, gives the viewer the opportunity to go deeper and connect with a film on a more fundamental level.

Obviously taking anything to the extreme is bad. Just as I dislike films that are overly edited (most films these days), I also didn't like Russian Ark because the film simply didn't work as one long take. Everything is shades of gray, and I must say I tend towards longer takes in films like Children of Men or anything from Tarkovsky.

 

[Christopher Daniel Walker]

Respectfully disagree. I suppose it depends on each person's own philosophy about film and how best to achieve a desired emotion or feeling.

Editing allows for temporality to be changed, to draw parallels and contrast, to exist from multiple points of view simultaneously, to extract from the background and bring it to the fore. You can quote Tarkovsky, I quote Walter Murch. It's subjective, not empirical. Artists don't all end in the same place or frame of mind. It would be boring if we did.

 

[Patryk_Rebisz]

We are not talking about failure of the art direction or that the "future" city should or shouldn't be more outlandish. It is what it is. Rather if something so prosaic such as following a guy in a dirt coat through streets of a regular city should be something for us to pay attention to. Of course it could be, there were many movies where we did just that but those films were dealing with poetry or other ephemeral issues. To compare this film to works of Tarkowski is a HUGE stretch as Tarkowski never attempted to make an action film. He made films that probably could be best described as metaphysical and in those, yes long ponderous takes are very appropriate because they allow us to get to the essence of things. Now lets speculate that the director of "Children of Men" did actually want to make a metaphysical sci-fi film... Well, then why use such primary school language and grammar? Nothing happens, then BAM! explosion and people jump out of their seats! Really? This kind of thinking doesn't leave me believing that he wants to talk about deep ideas or for that matter that he has ability to formulate his arguments.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

To compare this film to works of Tarkowski is a HUGE stretch as Tarkowski never attempted to make an action film. He made films that probably could be best described as metaphysical and in those, yes long ponderous takes are very appropriate because they allow us to get to the essence of things. Now lets speculate that the director of "Children of Men" did actually want to make a metaphysical sci-fi film... Well, then why use such primary school language and grammar? Nothing happens, then BAM! explosion and people jump out of their seats! Really? This kind of thinking doesn't leave me believing that he wants to talk about deep ideas or for that matter that he has ability to formulate his arguments.

When I saw that initial follow/tracking/whatever, then the explosion... my thoughts turned to "Touch of Evil"(1958), which has a long intro shot leading up to an explosion that sets the wheels of the movie in motion. In the case of "Touch of Evil", the viewer does have the advantage of dramatic irony.

I didn't have a problem with the long take in "Children of Men"(2006). I think the banality of ordering a cup of coffee, spiking it outside on the streets... one step away from liquid lunch in a brown paper bag..., characterize the character and situation... then Blam... something kicks the underpinnings of the ordinary world, and the story takes off.

On the other hand... in "Bambi Meets Gozilla"(1969) there's an awful long lull for the viewer to get to the punchline...

 

[Amr Rahmy]

There's so much going on within the frame that the viewer always has something to look at, and everything that he/she does look at adds depth to the film.

was that a star wars prequel joke? <- this is not a question.

why are we watching the movie, what's the story, why were we in the coffee place, why did the camera move to the right leaving the main character, why did the camera move and stop the way it did, why did the camera then rushed to catch up to the main character, why then the camera rotated around the main character before the explosion, rotating around the main character with a coat around his back side. all that is wasted footage that has no meaning, serves no purpose, doesn't even look good, the timing is off on the cgi-ed composite-ed part, and then after the explosion, did the camera rush into the explosion?

a long take at the start of a film(there was a film that started in a busy frantic on a film/tv set - there was one in a family gathering in one house drama/dark comedy) it should serve a purpose, and it should be timed perfectly. the one with the family drama had too many camera pan swipes that accentuated the frantic loud family gathering in one house.

 

[jghenderson]

@Patrick:

I think it's silly to assume all films have to outright talk about deep issues. It's very true that Children of Men is vastly different in tone than anything Tarkovsky ever made. However I think the principle behind the films is the same, which is that allowing the audience to seep into the frame, giving them time to absorb something, is sometimes better than treating an individual cut as a grammatical tool that must then be assembled in order for the film to "make sense". I don't believe all films should have such long takes, but I believe in Children of Men it was absolutely the right decision.


@Amr

To disagree about the style of Children of Men is fine, but to state that the footage "has no purpose" is just silly. As for it "not looking good", all I can say is that I disagree intensely. I think it's one of the most gorgeous films ever recorded, and I know a lot of people agree with me. In 2010, American Cinematographer had a list of their top 50 best shot films of the past decade. Children of Men was #2 (I would have put it #1).

 

[Amr Rahmy]

are you arguing something?, i stated somethings wrong with the first scene from the video in the op, did you argue against them? or talk about them?

did you state the purpose of those shots, or camera decisions? anything specific? can you talk about that scene specifically?

 

[Mark Stevens]

While I liked the cinematography a lot, the long famous battle shot/scene sort of took me out of the movie. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I kept rewinding. Definitely impressive and sometimes I think movies today have a bit too much cutting. But perhaps they took it overboard.

 

[refocusedmedia]

nothing wrong with it when it's done right. and it's was done right in a lot of movies when we see the main character going in or out of a location(it's usually in, and we usually get that opening 2 door, or back door. it's usually a crane shot, it's done so many times and timed perfectly that it's been cloned and copied in music videos).

but in that shot, the camera decided to stop, go in the opposite direction to the main character, look at something that did not exist at the time, was not timed correctly, and then finally turn around to catch up to the main character only to rotate around again for something about to happen that did not happen yet.

so in both times the camera is not concerned with the character we were supposed to follow, we are not seeing things from the characters perspective like we were supposed to.

You keep using phrases like "supposed to". According to who? You, that's who. There is no cardinal rule with visual story-telling.

The camera going the opposite direction of the character served to expand the world that the character and the story lives in. You should notice that they actually timed it perfectly, as we actually glimpse the reflection of the character walking away in the door frame, which leaves him in the shot and in our minds that much longer. Then we see this world... a mix of advanced technology and run-down stagnation. By the time we process this visual contrast, and begin to ponder the why's and how's. we are tracking our character again. Just as we get settled, we are rocked off our feet by a sudden explosion... just like the character. So, in a less-than-60-second shot we have already learned much about the setting, the world, and even a bit about the character and circumstances surrounding the story. That is fantastic, intelligent, purposeful story-telling that you are dismissing as sloppy and improper...

sometimes people watch the movie with the blind preconception that the movie is good.

Personally, I watched it never having seen a Cuaron film before and with a pessimistic attitude due to all the "hype". And it completely blew my mind. Now I consider it one of the most impressive and engrossing cinematic experiences I've ever had.

Editing is the strongest tool available to realise a scene, a character and tone; a long shot can disrupt your best tool for storytelling. When people talk about the cinematography in Children of Men it is more often about the length and complexity of a particular shot or another. Anytime your attention is drawn to the camera while watching a film it interferes with the narrative; you begin to think about the timing, the rehearsal and blocking of the shot. And for what? What greater purpose does a long shot accomplish over cutting during a scene?

Perhaps for an over-analytical editor. Think of cinematography has real-time editing. They are both the most important tools to realize a scene, character, or tone. Also, I would venture that most people don't call attention to the technical prowess of the film until after they've enjoyed the experience of viewing it.

We are not talking about failure of the art direction or that the "future" city should or shouldn't be more outlandish. It is what it is. Rather if something so prosaic such as following a guy in a dirt coat through streets of a regular city should be something for us to pay attention to. Of course it could be, there were many movies where we did just that but those films were dealing with poetry or other ephemeral issues.

No offense, but if all you took away from that scene was "following a guy in a dirt coat" then you missed the point entirely. I am not trying to sound pretentious here, but there is much more there than what you are scolding at face value.

Now lets speculate that the director of "Children of Men" did actually want to make a metaphysical sci-fi film... Well, then why use such primary school language and grammar? Nothing happens, then BAM! explosion and people jump out of their seats! Really? This kind of thinking doesn't leave me believing that he wants to talk about deep ideas or for that matter that he has ability to formulate his arguments.

Honestly, did you watch the whole film or did you over-scrutinize the opening and walk out upset? There are plenty of "deep ideas" explored throughout the film, and the sudden surprise moments are rather few and far between. It has a great mix of brain and brawn (and even the brawn is rather subdued).

why are we watching the movie, what's the story, why were we in the coffee place, why did the camera move to the right leaving the main character, why did the camera move and stop the way it did, why did the camera then rushed to catch up to the main character, why then the camera rotated around the main character before the explosion, rotating around the main character with a coat around his back side. all that is wasted footage that has no meaning, serves no purpose, doesn't even look good, the timing is off on the cgi-ed composite-ed part, and then after the explosion, did the camera rush into the explosion?

So, suffice to say, there isn't a single film you enjoy. Is that correct? Good grief, lol.

a long take at the start of a film it should serve a purpose, and it should be timed perfectly.

It does, and it is.

 

[Jester2138]

For reference, here is the complete opening of the film from the studio titles to the home in the woods: http://vimeo.com/28754616

Here's every camera move and why they did it, for those who claim it's all "unmotivated":

Follows him as he pushes through the crowd out of the bar. We see a TV monitor and briefly tilt up to see it better and emphasize the importance of an 18 year old's death. We tilt back down to continue following him out of the bar into this strange new world of the film. We pan right to see the nearby intersection and the military helicopter hovering overhead, then, as we pan left, follow a pedicab (weird to have that in London isn't it) to find our character walking through the crowded, dirty street. In the background we see St. Paul's Cathedral. Our character, a man on the go, gets his coffee ready on an object (not sure what it is). We move around him to see this strange world once again and see a couple greeting each other. Our attention is drawn to them. Then, BOOM. The cafe we were just in explodes and the couple dives for cover. We rush towards the wreckage (as any good-hearted bystander would do) to see a woman stumbling out of the cafe holding her arm in her other hand. Main title: CHILDREN OF MEN.

How is that NOT a totally awesome and immersive opening to a film?????? The entire point of any (properly done) long take is to draw the viewer into the film. This scene does that perfectly - it's like we're a bystander with a camcorder. I love it!

 

[refocusedmedia]

How is that NOT a totally awesome and immersive opening to a film?????? The entire point of any (properly done) long take is to draw the viewer into the film. This scene does that perfectly - it's like we're a bystander with a camcorder. I love it!

Because people desperately want to hold opinions that are contrary to the accepted norms. Or they just simply don't perceive it that way. Regardless, here are some interviews with Cuaron on the matter that should clear some things up:


Cinematical: Can you talk more about the decision to make the film using one-shots?

AC: The reason for that is, we don't want to favor character over the environment, we want to keep a balance. And that means that you don't do close-ups, because then you are favoring the character over the environment. So you do only very loose shots, because then the character, ideally, blends with the environment and, hopefully, has a conflict. So you can have tension between background environment and your character.

Another thing is not to use editing or montage, trying to seek for an effect. It is to try to create a moment of truthfulness, in which the camera just happens to be there to just register that moment. So that leads into the long shots. Because then you just register the moments as they go. So what becomes important, then, is not the camera, but the moment. If you are going through life and something happens, you don't have the luxury of going , "Stop, stop, guys, and let me get a close-up!"

Now, by the same token, if we failed, if the camera itself, the shot we were taking, was cutting away from that moment of truthfulness, that is when we decided to cut. That battle scene at the end, that shot kept on going. And we said, no, we are losing the sense of the moment, and becoming more about "look, no hands," and so we decided to cut from that moment. It was about trying to achieve the balance of that, about trying to register that moment, making that moment the most important aspect of the whole thing -- not the shot.

But sometimes just by the fact that you're following the moment and you don't cut, it can begin to feel like you're doing it for the sake of your own artistry or whatever, and that was the moment at which we would choose to cut. Because these one-shot deals are not only in the action scenes -- most of the movie was shot that way. So the weight goes onto the actors ... (chuckles) and I don't have to work too much. I just sit back, relax and enjoy the show.


Cinematical: I want to talk about the visual design of the film. I've heard that other people were pushing to give the fill a more futuristic look and that you fought against that.

AC: Well, it was not pushing, really, it was just -- you say, I'm going to do a film that is set in 2027, and you have an art department that gets so excited because, finally, they get to execute concept designs that they've been dreaming to do, for all these futuristic buildings and cars. And gadgets -- they had a lot of gadgets. But the fact is that we didn't want to do a science fiction film.

In this movie, I told them, you unfortunately have to leave your imagination outside. It's kind of like, you know, when you go to a writer's workshop and you have the creative workshop? This film was not the creative workshop, it was the essay workshop. It's not about imagining and being creative, it is about referencing reality. So -- the cinematographer, he said that not a single frame of this film can go by making a comment about the state of things. So everything became about reference -- and not reference about what is around, like, oh, I'm walking around, and this is what I saw on the street, but about how this has relevance in the context of the state of things, of the reality that we are living today.

And most of those things we tried to make references coming from the media, referencing that they had become a part of human consciousness, and that maybe we don't fully remember, but when you see it you recognize something that rings true because you have seen it in reality -- even if you don't really remember it consciously. And so the exercise was to transcend not only reality, but also to cross-reference within the film to the spiritual themes of the film.


FilmCritic: You paint on a large canvas for Children, but you also fill in your backgrounds with miraculous detail. I don't need to use the term mise en scene with a lot of filmmakers, but it applies to your vision. What were you paying attention to as you rounded out these massive scenes?

AC: You are speaking of the toughest challenge for this film. People ask about the very long camera shots, and yes, those brought a number of technical applications. But it was nothing compared to the complexity of coming up with the backgrounds. For me, the backgrounds are the social environment. And part of the point of making this movie is that the social environment is as important as your leading actor.

Emmanuel Lubezki, my cinematographer who won at Venice this year for his work on this film, kept saying, 'We cannot afford one single film frame to pass without commenting about the state of things.'

So we had a list of thematic topics, and we'd go back to see what we have and have not commented on. Which issues have become more relevant as we are shooting the movie? We had to keep dating our references, because everything was a reference from events that have been happening in the past few years.


FilmCritic: Please comment on the film's impressive unbroken shots. The first time I noticed it was during the attack on the forest road. Was that the first one?

AC: Oh no, there are a lot of ones before that, but they're understated. We shot this film the way that we would have shot [Cuarón's earlier film] Y tu mama tambien. The difference with tambien was that the social context in Mexico already existed. Here we had to create the environment.

Apart from the action scenes, there are a number of unbroken scenes early on. Watch when Clive comes out of the coffee shop. The important thing about each shot was to create a moment in which the camera was simply there to register what was happening. The minute we felt that we were calling attention to the shot, we would cut.



A blurb I found from some Children of Men wikipedia site (emphasis mine):

"In most sci-fi epics, special effects substitute for story. Here they seamlessly advance it," observes Colin Covert of Star Tribune.[52] Billboards were designed to balance a contemporary and futuristic appearance as well as easily visualizing what else was occurring in the rest of the world at the time, and cars were made to resemble modern ones at first glance, although a closer look made them seem unfamiliar.[53] Cuarón informed the art department that the film was the "anti-Blade Runner",[54] rejecting technologically advanced proposals and downplaying the science fiction elements of the 2027 setting. The director focused on images reflecting the contemporary period,[55]choosing to have innovative technology in the film's timeline discontinued by 2014. With the future in mind, Cuarón maintained a steady gaze on the present: "We didn't want to be distracted by the future. We didn't want to transport the audience into another reality."[56]


Here's a great summary from reverseshot.com:

Defying expectations, the clarity of Cuarón's vision was apparent in the movie's opening frames. With stunning confidence, he thrusts viewers into a bleak future: over a black screen, we hear a news broadcast that leads with a story about the death of the world's youngest person—an 18-year-old. Cuarón cuts to a high angle shot of a crowd of people in a cafe, transfixed as they watch the terrible report on a television set. Theo enters and orders a coffee. As he looks up, Cuarón cuts to the monitor, then back as Theo gets his drink and leaves. The camera follows him in a handheld shot out the door, pausing to take everything in after it exits to the London street (a subtitle reveals the date: November 16, 2027). Cuarón's camera turns towards Theo, walking with him and then stopping when he steps aside to add some booze to his coffee. Then there's an offscreen blast. The ringing of Theo's ears takes over the soundtrack as the camera turns back and moves towards the smoking cafe, out of which emerges a woman charred from the explosion, carrying her own arm. The sequence is shocking, even grotesque, but in its narrative efficiency and strict attention to point-of-view it prepares us for the unrelenting cinematic tour de force to follow.

And a rather wordy one from time4reading.blogspot.com:

Theo Faron, the central figure, an anti-heroic everyman, is caught within a world of self-annihilation—thanatos is the dominant energy of his life. Emerging from the coffee shop, the opening shot of the film, Theo meanders a few yards down the gray street and stops, places his black coffee on a newsstand, reaches into his coat pocket, pulls out whiskey and long-pours himself a drink. The camera follows Theo through the use of a steady-cam mounted on the director’s shoulder. The shot is long and fluid. Cuarón wants the audience to experience “real time” as the shots develop “as if [the audience] is just following characters with [a] DV [digital video] camera in the year 2027” (Cuarón, “Under”). As the drink is poured, the coffee shop explodes—bodies are strewn across the street, traffic stops, and Theo stares through terrified eyes as the sounds of screaming and the high-pitched note of tinnitus rings out. Instantaneously, the title of the film is jump cut onto the screen. “CHILDREN OF MEN” is seen in bold white capital letters against a solid black background. The effect is unnerving as the scene triggers a visceral fear response from Theo and the audience. Tinnitus, the sound of trauma to the inner ear, rings from the explosion, through the opening title, and into the next shot of Theo walking to his cubicle at work. By having the ringing continue over the editing and transition from one shot to the title credit to the next scene, Cuarón activates the death instinct by placing the audience into Theo’s experience. We have been traumatized by the event; we are in the cubicle with Theo. The audience member becomes a first-person participant in this world of self-annihilation.

And yet another from filemb.net:

The most noticeable editing style throughout Children of Men is the lack of cuts as the camera follows Theo throughout the world of the film. This documentary-like style gives the feeling that the world being shown is a world that actually exists on its own. In the opening scene Theo walks out of a coffee shop which is blown up only moments later. With traditional Hollywood style editing the film would cut to various wide shots to establish the location outside of the coffee shop, but with this single-shot style the camera pans around to show us different details of the world without forcing our attention on to specific shots with a cut. By eliminating cuts, the viewer is given a sense that the events taking place on screen are completely unscripted and the camera just happens to be there as they are happening.

 

[Amr Rahmy]

So, in a less-than-60-second shot we have already learned much about the setting, the world, and even a bit about the character and circumstances surrounding the story.

you repeated somethings multiple times there. all you learned was from what? the news on tv? and lower third text? the camera going right did not establish or do anything. the camera having a mind of it's own and looking at the tv before leaving the coffee place did not help either, following the images of the boy on the different screens did not do anything. and did you learn about the character?

expand the world(how did that happen from seeing the same images that we just saw inside the coffee place outside on a bigger but duller screen), leave him in the shot and our minds that much longer(why did we leave him?), by the time we process the visual contrast(which was several seconds), and begin to ponder,

are you running on a Pentium 2 processor.


catching up to the character did not do anything, why did it happen? why did the camera rotate around the back of the character, what did that do? what was it for?

it's like we're a bystander with a camcorder

so your saying it's on the same level as home videos and found footage movies. <- movies without cinematography!!

when was the last time you ordered take away drinks or food from a coffee place or a restaurant on foot to walk outside in the wind(in London) just to try to ready your coffee outside. how was he reading his coffee?

do you think it's logical that we see people living in that world for years, in the morning, going about their day normally, going to a coffee place on their way to work, all stopping like statues looking at the news, while everyone else outside the coffee place with access to the same news on the big tvs and the employee serving the main character coffee are the only ones going about their business. did someone forward the script to the extras in the coffee place? and not the people outside.

 

[Erich Ocean]

I guess I'm the only one who saw the opening of Children of Men as:

a) establishing the pacing for the film (slow, long shots, documentary-style, few edits -- none of this is meant to be critical, BTW)
b) establishing that this is a directed film that is not on "auto-pilot" (the director is choosing this stuff for a reason, hence the non-standard shot length)
c) an intro to the world of the story, and in this case, the importance of that world to the storyline (very)

From my perspective, it achieved all of those things well.

I try and judge directors (and films) base on what was attempted and achieved, rather than "what I would do" with the same story.

Another film that opens slow, and with a bang, is A History of Violence. I thought it worked just as well, and for similar reasons.

 

[refocusedmedia]

I try and judge directors (and films) base on what was attempted and achieved, rather than "what I would do" with the same story.

+1,000,000

The fact is it is irrelevant what anyone else would do with the same story or how they think something should or wouldn't be done. Unless the actually do it, then we can judge the experience of their version.


Amr, you are not making any sense and it seems like you are looking for reasons to complain. It's one thing to not care for the film, it's another to purposefully stretch things to obfustication.

Everything you described was entirely logical within the story.

 

[Patryk_Rebisz]

refocusedmedia: "which leaves him in the shot and in our minds that much longer." No it doesn't the purpose of this was very clear (if simplistic) - let's show the world

"Then we see this world... a mix of advanced technology and run-down stagnation. By the time we process this visual contrast, and begin to ponder the why's and how's. " Visual contrast to what? I'm not sure where you live but this is what any given city looks like. So panning across that cityscape is to "inform" the viewer about what already they have seen many many times before (???). I have hard time believing that when that camera pans across this cityscape you ponder - Wow, this is fantastic, sights i haven't seen!! If anything because so much time is spent on trivial things that i have seen many times - and after all because my mind is working, i ask myself why are we spending so much time on those trivialities and the answer really quickly occurs "can it be to set-up through mundane something exciting - like an explosion or something?" and before this question even fully verbalizes in my head that explosion does happen... Is that really the "most impressive and engrossing cinematic experiences you ever had"???