How are those New Year’s Resolutions going as we all get all “new year, new you”? As we look towards a fresh new start, why not look at a future, alternative reality of London on the big screen? What’s the attraction of futuristic films set in the UK capital, not a deserted city or one haunted by evil zombies, but alternative reality, with life continuing in a recognisable but very different world?
Nina Romain looks at cinematic worlds visualising London completely different from the one we know in 2024, including the nightmare of Children of Men. She talks to director Naeem Mahmood about shooting his new film in a futuristic London after a “Chinese-like colonisation of Britain” and how it was like: “stepping into Narnia through a wardrobe that happened to be my front door.”
Children of Men (2006) is set in London in the not-too-far-off future of a cold, monochrome November of 2027. It’s a grubby dystopia where characters wear ripped up 2012 Olympics T-shirts, trapped in a decaying city punctuated with the message: “The World Has Collapsed: Only Britain Soldiers On” and scrawled graffiti such as “last one to die please turn out the lights”. A train crawls past a pack of feral children hurling stones, and double-deckers buses also have wire fences on the windows to prevent further attacks from outside.
Director Alfonso Cuarón creates a rubbish- and graffiti-strewn concrete jungle of London, matched with the desolate countryside piled high with burning bodies of animals. Illegal immigrants are “hunted down like cockroaches” as Michael Caine’s character Jasper observes, there’s widespread advertising of suicide kits with the motto: “you decide when” and Mad Max-esque death traps of burning cars in peaceful forests.
A radio station has the announcer point out in the distorted but still recognisable world of 2027 we may be listening to music that is: “A blast from the past all the way back from 2003 – that beautiful time when people refused to accept that the future was just around the corner.”
However, completely different to this decaying, colourless London, crammed with starving, shabby inhabitants, is director Naeem Mahmood’s vision of an alternative future. Pictured below on set, in red jacket, he explains that his new film, shot during lockdown, Gods of Their Own Religion (2023) is set in a “dystopian universe, in the not too distant future – a Chinese-like colonisation of Britain.”
How is your futuristic London different from ours?
The film centres around a gang, the last of a breed of free spirits in a techno-authoritarian Britain being run by a Chinese-like state. It’s suffocating, smothering and oppressive. Danger lurks at every corner for the defiant. They are outcasts in their own town. Their only solace is when in the underground, unlicensed clubs and bars (pictured). They harbour desires of escaping the urban decay of London for an idyllic setting in nature.
What was it like filming in London during lockdown?
What kind of look and feel were you going for in this alternative London, and how did you create that?
Otherworldly, beguiling, beautiful, horrific, haunting and tragic. I wanted to peel away from some of the Western influence with respect to composition, movement, space, pace, and sound design – fuse and transcend established genres.
Were there any other films that inspired you in creating this brave new world?
The low-key lighting and intrusive shafts of light seen throughout the original Blade Runner inspired the projection of oppressive dystopian themes, and characters with dark and mysterious roots. [My] other inspirations included the stillness that dominates Takeshi Kitano’s films, where my characters are planted in static compositions to convey the lost souls that they have become.
I utilised Wong Kar Wai’s dreamlike-meditative style to convey human connection. Fritz Lang’s Metropolis inspired me with its expressionist, operatic and all-encompassing spectacle of the scenescapes. John Carpenter’s body of unsettling, anti-authoritarian works helped influence the slow-burn tension. But ultimately the real-life story that unfolded during the lockdowns fed me with most of the inspiration I needed. The look and feel was tied together by the Chinese automated announcement and instructions.
Which scene was your favourite moment to shoot and why?
The final scene in Tower Hill (pictured) on the edge of London’s financial district, where modernity and history come together and is most famous for the Tower of London and the Roman Wall. I imagined a grand finale that would capture and tie up all the film’s themes. It involved the largest number of extras required in the film and the closure of a road without permission. There was tension leading up to it as with most of our shoots. Our assistant directors were brilliant at stopping the on-coming traffic without fuss, and everyone involved was so enthusiastic and switched on!
So as we look towards our own futures, which one awaits us in the real life London? As a Children of Men radio announcer points out in the distorted but still recognisable world of 2027, one day we may be listening to music that is: “A blast from the past all the way back from 2003, that beautiful time when people refused to accept that the future was just around the corner.”
So just in case this comes true, maybe our New Year’s Resolution should be to just get out there in London and enjoy the “beautiful time” of 2024.
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