One of the most dazzling technical achievements of the year has been, seemingly without question, Alfonso Cuarón’s “Children of Men.” Capturing a bleak and not so distant future through the spectrum of war-torn London, the film has been a towering achievement in pretty much every field we’ve outlined here at “Tech Support” throughout the season. And, as the Oscar ceremony rapidly approaches, one of the categories seems to have been long relegated to this, one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year.

Emmanuel Lubezki’s duties behind the camera on the film might immediately be described as harrowing if not monumental. Work that has already garnered him BAFTA, LAFCA and NSFC awards for Best Cinematography, some are quick to point out that “Children of Men”’s visual intensity will be taught in film schools for years to come. As such, the opportunity to talk with the man responsible for such a barrage of adjectives is one to relish indeed.

The mood of “Children of Men” seems to permeate the look at every turn: stark, gritty, immersing the audience in the on-screen action. But Lubezki insists his approach to creating the visual atmosphere does not necessarily change from project to project.

“Whenever I start a film, I make a set of rules,” he explains. “On this film, we stuck with ideas such as long takes, only one lens, strictly natural light and always being close to the action; you can’t actually feel like you’re in the action without having the camera close to it.”

He freely admits that shooting in the winter in England, where the temperature was always cool and the sunlight was very consistent, was ideal for his efforts. And he does concede and that he had to break away from the “no artificial lighting rule” twice when sets prevented the desired effect of the shot. But he ultimately felt that those early stand-bys helped in accomplishing what he set out to do.

Many of the shots in “Children of Men” are extraordinarily complex and have been reported ad nauseam. Lubezki mentions the infamous car chase sequence as well as the chase through the coastal city street as two particularly challenging feats to pull off. But he credits his crew and Clive Owen’s understanding of the camera for helping him with such accomplishments and he certainly does not overplay his role on the film as anything more than his job.

“When you’re on the set, you’re thinking about the audience,” he says. “You want them to feel what you feel and you always want to make sure they don’t catch your ‘magic camera tricks.’ If you pull that off, then you’ve succeeded as a cinematographer.”

It goes without saying the four-time Oscar nominee has an extremely close relationship to Alfonso Cuarón, whom he has known since they were teenagers. The two even attended film school together.

“Our similar background resulted in us looking for similar things when we started working together,” he says of his experiences working with Cuarón. Indeed, this is their fifth feature collaboration following “Y Tu Mama Tambien,” “Great Expectations,” “Love in the Time of Hysteria,” and “A Little Princess,” for which Lubezki earned his first notice from the AMPAS.

Lubezki was not, however, adopted as Cuarón’s director of photography on “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” As he was shooting Niels Mueller’s (EDITOR’S NOTE: underappreciated) “The Assassination of Richard Nixon,” Cuarón instead looked to New Zealand lenser Michael Serensin. But, as Lubezki explains it, when the duo came back together on “Children of Men” after three years of being apart, it was as if no time had passed.

Cuarón and Lubezki are just two of several nominees this year hailing from Mexico, a country which Lubezki credits with defining who he is by affecting his taste and his approach to work and worldview. It’s clear he’s thrilled with the credit his fellow countrymen have achieved this year on “Babel,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” and, of course, “Children of Men.”

“I never would have dreamed this would happen at all, much less in a single year,” he tells me. “People forget that when you’re in the film business, you give up lots. We left our families, our friends and our country. That we’re all getting recognition from so many different branches is wonderful.”

As close as his relationship with Cuarón is, Lubezki has also worked with several high profile American filmmakers: Mike Nichols (“The Birdcage”), Michael Mann (“Ali”), Tim Burton (“Sleepy Hollow”) and Terrence Malick (“The New World”), just to name a few. Lubezki freely admits all are extremely different in their approach to filmmaking. But he also does not hesitate to call all of them “film authors,” the sort of filmmaker he truly admires because he finds it is so difficult to survive in Hollywood while staying true to one’s artistic vision.

As for the awards circuit, “Children of Men” has brought more attention Lubezki’s way than any other year, and certainly, more intensely than he could have ever imagined. He confesses a love-hate relationship with the dizzying derby that is an Oscar race.

“The achievements are all so different,” he says. “How can you pick a single best picture, a single best performance by an actor in a leading role or a single best cinematographic achievement? But it’s really great to see someone who’s given their life to a film be recognized.”

As mentioned, this will be Lubezki’s fourth trip to the Oscars, after having previously been nominated for “A Little Princess” in 1995, “Sleepy Hollow” in 1999 and “The New World” in 2005. But he admits this time it’s different. “All my friends are with me!” he exclaims, referring to his fellow Mexican nominees, “it’s been crazy!”

After such a degree of acclaim and success across multiple genres, where could a man who has seemingly done it all in a short amount of time go from here? He’s the first to admit there are too many ways to answer a question such as that. There are, of course, so many directors with whom he’d like to work, techniques with which he’d like to experiment and genres he’d like to participate in. He frankly doesn’t know what the future holds. It really seems that he doesn’t want to know, either. Regardless, “Children of Men” has already established another milestone for “Chivo,” and his is a career that might very well reach one of the industry’s highlights in a mere ten days.