The moment
I found out that Cloud Atlas was a story involving reincarnation, souls meeting
in different lifetimes etc. I felt a worry beginning to brew in the pit of my
stomach. I know this kind of film only too well. Full of grandiose messages
about life, “the truth” and the universe. So packed full of metaphors and
similes you need a dictionary of filmography to work your way through it all. Coming
out way too pleased with itself at the end. This kind of film often annoys me
because, well, firstly I don’t believe there is a single, easy “unifying theory
of everything” so I get annoyed with films that claim they’re it. Secondly,
while I do appreciate double meanings and depth in a film I certainly don’t
think I should need to actually have to do research to figure out what exactly
is being said.
Now I will
not say Cloud Atlas is easy to follow. I mean there are six stories, separate
yet interwoven, with the same characters (or rather the same souls) changing
bodies, sex and race in practically each one and the stories are of course in
true Buddhist style, repetitions, variations or rather, on the same theme, each
one evolving with time, adding something, taking something out, some mistakes
being repeated through the ages, other ones being changed, and changing
history. I have gained infinite respect for the Wachowskis, not least because
it must have been a complete mind-f.ck to write, never mind to film. But shall
I tell you something? Unlike Donnie Darko (who I watched once and then discarded
on the basis of having entire websites dedicated solely to deciphering the
story) I will watch Cloud Atlas again. The Wachowskis have tried something
rather daring and, would you believe it, they have pulled it off. It comes
together beautifully, just like a symphony.
The film
is, of course, full of grandiose emotions – but we all expected that, right? Concepts
like eternity, everlasting love that survives death, immortal souls that death
cannot separate… But never fear. It never reaches the point where it begins to
get sickly, and we do go to this kind of film precisely for a dose or two of
this kind of emotion, after all. In short yes, there is a certain amount of the
preaching mentioned in the introduction, but not too much. Just enough. The
same actors are often used, especially in the minor roles, as the same “type”
of character, or rather the character that has the same role from one story to
the next. Our heroes however, seem to almost change with every story, which
doesn’t seem to make sense, but then again don’t try and read too much cold logic into it. The whole point of
the story is to give us a feeling of transcendent love, and this, the film
manages very well.
I need to
re-watch the film to clarify this point, but one thing I am not entirely sure
of. As the same actors are not always used to represent the same souls, I did
not quite get the pattern in how the bodies changed around. I am pretty sure
the Wachowskis didn’t simply pull names out of a hat. There is, for example,
the curious case of Tom Hanks. Now I know he’s meant to be the bad guy who
evolves into a hero in the last story – or at least I think that’s what he was
meant to be – but then there are discrepancies. I mean Ok, up until the very
last story but one (chronologically that is) (and here it starts raining
spoilers so look away now if you’re sensitive) – i.e. the one with Sumi, the
clones and the Purebloods etc – I have to presume he is the third party who is
trying to thwart our couple, the one who is trying to ultimately harm or use
the protagonist (whichever character who was born with the shooting star mark
in that particular story). If we follow that pattern, we have to assume he is
the government official that Sumi “turns” just before her execution at the end
of her sequence. Well ok, then it makes sense that he would be reborn as a good
person in the next chronological sequence – you know the post-apocalyptic,
cannibalistic humanity bit starring Tom Hanks and Halle Berry. I mean ok, sure,
he evolves, he becomes a hero, he gets the girl in the end and that’s all very
nice but here’s the problem - what
happens to the other protagonist? You know, the love interest. And if you tell
me that was Halle Berry, well what happens to the original hero then? Ok
another thing, let’s assume he has been evolving through the story, in the
sequence in the ‘70s, he is the scientist who actually decides to help Halle
Berry (as Lisa Ray the journalist) so I mean, ok, he’s becoming a better person
etc, right? Wrong. Fast forward to the ‘90s, he murders a book critic in cold
blood and then, albeit as a different character in a comedy sequence clearly
inserted for comic relief more than anything else, he is also the brother who locks
our protagonist (Jim Broadbent) up in the first place. There has to be
something I’m missing here. Because we KNOW Tom Hanks is the protagonist of the
(chronologically) last story as he has the birthmark. But then, THEN, the whole
premise of love everlasting falls apart as he was the bad guy in like, 4 of the
other 5 stories (in the ‘30s story the main big baddie is Jim Broadbent, Tom
Hanks is the inn keeper, not a nice guy but not a major player either). So ok,
then it was completely random, in fact he doesn’t evolve at all, the bad guy
Tom Hanks was playing somehow just vanishes and they put Tom Hanks as the last
hero to make it a nice, Hollywood-style beautiful couple for the closing scene
with the shooting star in the sky and all that… Because, I would like to point
out, that the 6th story does not actually have a proper, focal “bad
guy”. You might argue the cannibalistic tribe, but no, their actual equivalents
in the other stories are the “muscle” baddies, you know the racist captain in
the first story, the hit man in the ‘70s sequence, the CEO in the Sunmi sequence,
Nurse Noakes in the comedy sequence…
So yeah. I
mean maybe we’re not meant to puzzle over it too much. But worst case scenario,
the 6th story only kinda fits in with the other five. A good job as
been done with hammering it in, but it is still a square peg in a round hole. One
thing we can stop and admire is the commentary made on the universality of
love, as the souls seem to change body indiscriminately, Forbischer comes back
as a young black woman, Lisa Ray and actually sees her/ his true love again. I found the sequences
where she puzzles over the letters she herself wrote in her previous lifetime
particularly touching. She is then reborn as a clone waitress – making a rather
neat comment about artificial intelligence and the future of machines.
Like I said,
I’ve got every suspicion that I am missing something here and it will all come
clear if I watch the film a few more times. Either that, or I am really loosing
myself in details. But in any case, rest assured the film is an incredibly
enjoyable and emotionally charged way of spending a couple of hours.
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