A couple of years back, the young Mexican superstar GaelGarcia Bernal urged me to look up his buddy, director Alfonso Cuaron. You'll really like him, man! Turns out catching up to auteur Cuaronwould prove to be the hard part, when a man is so in demand that his work leapsacross genres and borders.
From his early-90s dark comedy about a straight,macho guy who contacts AIDS; to an award-winning American cable series; toadapting a beloved children's book; to updating Dickens; to casting two youngstuds of the New Mexican Cinema, friends since childhood, in a torrid lovescene; to directing the Harry Potter episode most beloved by Potter's creator;to his latest project, adapting bestselling British author P.D. James'apocalyptic novel Children of Men forthe screen, Cuaron is a man who doesn't stay in one place for long.
Cuaron's version of James' Children of Men is a very bleak look at a near future where the humanpopulation has become sterile, the youngest humans are now tabloid celebrities,and an Orwellian-style British government has virtually banned all immigration,with illegal aliens hunted down like typhoid carriers by squads of brutishpolice.
Into this toxic miasma, Children focuses on the efforts of a feckless bureaucrat(Clive Owen) to smuggle the world's lone pregnant women through a gauntlet thatmakes the current skirmish in Iraq seem downright agreeable. Cuaron's filmborrows the outlines of James' Catholic allegorical novel, while focusing onthe very hot immigration issue.
Cuaron thinks that the current immigrationdustups, whether in Europe or between his native Mexico and the US, areaggravated by distorted perceptions of alien workers in the media.
Right away it sets the standard, 'We have a problem.People are getting into our house,' without exploring the reasons why thisissue is going on.
Cuaron argues, The idea of setting a wall betweenMexico and the US is the kind of archaic solution that will completelybackfire. A big percentage of the Mexicans coming into the States earn theirmoney, then try to return to enjoy their money. With tougher immigrationmeasures, they realize it will be tougher to go up and down, so why not bringthe whole family?
Once you bring the whole family, you might as well stayhere.
Cuaron had a ball shooting the film with actors like CliveOwen. I consider him a collaborator.
He says Michael Caine basedhis pot-smoking New Age guy on the late John Lennon, He knew John Lennon,they were friends, He thanks Queer as Folk veteran Charlie Hunnam for bringing a scary quality to his relativelysmall role as a British anti-immigrant soldier.
Cuaron says his depiction of the violent urban warfare inthe film was intended not to glorify violence, but to represent theunglamorous crudeness of real violence.
He describes with delight the bygone chapter shooting hispioneering teen comedy, Y Tu Mama Tambien, withravishing newcomers Gael Garcia Bernal and his childhood buddy Diego Luna.
Theday of the now-famous kissing scene, he observed the two actors start toexhibit macho-like panic hugging women on the set, excessive drinking,anything to deny the implications of two best buddies simulating the throes ofsexual passion. A hilarious moment occurred after several takes, when Diegoturned to Gael and whispered, Hey, you're a good kisser!
Directing the third Harry Potter movie, Cuaron came awaywith a strong impression of the red-haired but bashful Rupert Grint as thelikely future star out of the Hogwarts trio.
The director noted that it wasinteresting to observe Grint's shyness with girls compared to Garcia Bernal'slegendary affinity for the ladies. Gael, he was seven, and he wassleeping with all the girls in the kindergarten.
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