Tuesday, September 03, 2013

Cult-Movie Review: Cloud Atlas (2012)




All boundaries are conventions waiting to be transcended. One may transcend any convention, if only can first conceive of doing so.”

-          Cloud Atlas (2012)


The 2012 Wachowski/Tom Tykwer science fiction film Cloud Atlas is a sprawling, three hour epic, and a dedicated adaptation of David Mitchell’s award-winning novel of the same name, first published in 2004.   The novel tells six stories (or a sextet, if you prefer), set in six different time periods, ranging from centuries ago to centuries in the future.   

It is necessary to describe these six stories briefly, so you have a full sense of them, before I continue to review the film.


“We cross and re-cross our old paths like figure-skaters.”

First, there’s “The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing,” set in the South Pacific in 1849. Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgess) is the son-in-law of a slave-trader (Hugo Weaving).  Adam falls grievously ill on his return home to England, but is deliberately made sicker by a con-man, Dr. Goose (Tom Hanks), who wishes to steal his wealth.  Fortunately, Adam has befriended a black slave and stowaway on the ship, one who is grateful for Adam’s kindnesses, and comes to watch over him.

The second story, “Letters from Frobisher” is set in 1936 Scotland, and involves a brilliant young musician, Frobisher (Ben Whislaw) who creates a sextet called the Cloud Atlas while mentoring with one of the world’s greatest composers, Vyvian Ayrs (Jim Broadbent). When Ayrs recognizes his talent, however, he uses Frobisher’s homosexuality to extort him and imprisons the young man in his home until he hands over the Cloud Atlas.  Frobisher’s lover, Rufus Sixsmith (James D’Arcy) tries to save Frobisher, but fate rips them apart.

The third tale, “Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery” is set in San Francisco in 1973, and features a dedicated reporter, Luisa (Halle Berry) who learns a dangerous secret about a nuclear plant that will soon go into operation.  She attempts to report the truth, but the head of the plant, Lloyd Hooks (Hugh Grant) orders her assassinated.

The fourth tale is “The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish.” Set in London in 2012, this tale finds a fly-by-night book agent Cavendish (Broadbent) unexpectedly incarcerated at a diabolical nursing home.  With the other exploited old folks in the home, Cavendish engineers an escape from custody, and sells the movie rights to his story.

The fifth story, “An Orison of Somni-451” is set in New Seoul in 2144 AD, as old Seoul succumbs to the ravages of global warming. There, a female “fabricant,” Somni-451 (Doona Bae) regularly endures slavery and exploitation but nonetheless honors the First Catechism: “Honor They Consumer.”  Soon, she experiences an awakening about the fabricants’ plight, and the connections between human beings.  She conveys these thoughts to the world at large after being rescued by the people’s union.  Through this orison or prayer on viral video, Somni, in later generations is worshiped as a prophet.

In Cloud Atlas’s sixth and final story, set in the post-apocalyptic Hawaii of 2346 AD, a grizzled old storyteller, Zachry (Hanks) recounts by campfire the tale of how his tribe ended up in a new home, starting a new life.  His story involves a gang of fearsome cannibals called the Kona (led by Hugh Grant in terrifying war-paint…) and his fateful decision to help a “prescient,” Meronym (Berry) on a long and dangerous trek to a mountain summit.  There, she believes, an answer regarding mankind’s future may exist.  But Zachry’s got a devil on his back, one insistent on causing Meronym’s mission to fail…


“Fear, belief, love…phenomena that determined the course of our lives. These forces begin long before we are born and continue after we perish…”

The movie version of Cloud Atlas adapts all six stories highlighted in the book, but takes the unusual step of doing so -- as the descriptions above indicate -- with the same eight or ten actors appearing in all segments, namely Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Susan Sarandon, Hugo Weaving, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, Jim D’Arcy, and Jim Sturgess. 

Now, just to be crystal clear, these actors are not playing the same character in each story; but rather entirely different individuals, a fact made abundantly plain by the creative and jaw-dropping make-up effects featured on-screen. 

So Halle Berry plays both a black woman of the year 2346 and a white, Jewish woman of the year 1936.

Likewise, Tom Hanks plays a murderous English thug for the story set in 2012, a movie star in the year 2144 AD, and the post-apocalyptic story-teller, Zachry, in the post-apocalyptic finale.

The question regarding this particular approach is: why

Why vet these six very different stories in such a way that the same repertory actors perform all the parts? 

The answer ultimately comes down to the film’s application of Buddhist philosophy, or what the dialogue terms “Eternal Recurrence.” 

Buddhists will immediately recognize this concept as something akin to the Samsara, which Wikipedia describes thusly: “

“…Samsara is defined as the continual repetitive cycle of birth and death that arises from ordinary beings' grasping and fixating on a self and experiences. Specifically, samsara refers to the process of cycling through one rebirth after another within the six realms of existence, where each realm can be understood as a physical realm or a psychological state characterized by a particular type of suffering. Samsara arises out of avidya (ignorance) and is characterized by dukkha (suffering, anxiety, dis-satisfaction). In the Buddhist view, liberation from samsara is possible by following the Buddhist path.”

You may notice something important encoded in that definition above.  The Samsara is said to have six realms of existence, and Cloud Atlas likewise consists of six story-lines set in six time periods.

Thus the movie’s epic tapestry serves as a deliberate re-creation of the Samsara, and the actors each portray multiple individuals or characters.  But the argument could be made, I suppose that they are playing…only one soul moving through the six realms, from past to future (and in one fascinating case of prescience, future to past…).

This fact means that the Tom Hanks character in the first, third and sixth story are different people/individuals but are perhaps the same soul, experiencing avidya and dukkha in a different state of existence, or level of the Samsara. 

Another way to describe Cloud Atlas’s thematic conceit: each main character in the film is re-born into one of the six realms and based on his “kindnesses” or “crimes” writes his soul’s very future going forward.

Again, what’s the benefit of structuring the story this way?  Well, the directors are more easily able to examine the ripple effects of moral or immoral decision-making over a long period of time or history, for one thing.

For instance, the soul portrayed by Jim Broadbent in the tale set in 1936 Scotland does something terrible to another person and his soul eventually suffers for it.  Specifically, Vyvian Ayrs, a famous composer, imprisons Frobisher -- a young man of great talent -- in an attempt to steal his work. 

But then, in the 2012 story, “The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish,” the same soul (for which actor Broadbent is the visual avatar) receives his karmic comeuppance: Cavendish is imprisoned in a nursing home of the damned. 

His soul’s evil acts in 1936 were paid forward to the next realm of the Samsara and thus the next iteration of his soul, Timothy, suffers grievously.  And the manner of the punishment is equal to the crime.  The soul goes from victimizer to victim, from jailer to jailed.

In one life: a jailer and exploiter.

In the next life: jailed and exploited.
Similarly, the soul symbolized by Hugh Grant undergoes his karmic comeuppance across two stories and two epochs.  As Lloyd Hooks, a nuclear plant manager in 1973, this soul willfully plans to murder thousands of people in a meltdown…all because he is being paid by the oil industry to sow mistrust of nuclear power. 

By the time this corrupt soul reaches 2346 Hawaii, however, he is a half savage beast and a cannibal, the Kona Chief.  His actions in life have made his journey through the Samsara all the more horrible.  By his sixth go-round he has not evolved or transcended, but actually devolved into something barely human, something very nearly animal.

In one life a killer by proxy.

In the next, a killer by hand...and teeth.
To fully understand and appreciate Cloud Atlas it is necessary to understand the Buddhist underpinnings, the concept of Samsara (or “eternal recurrence” in the film’s lingo), and even karma.  The viewer must realize he or she is witnessing the march of souls from 1849 to 2346 and that each stop or each story along the way is an opportunity for those souls to deliver kindnesses to others and evolve to the next step, or deliver a crime, and continue in a realm of suffering going forward.

As you are no doubt tired of reading here on the blog, my highest aesthetic or critical criterion is that form must echo content in film, and that visuals must reflect the story. 

Cloud Atlas is so brilliant and worthwhile a science fiction initiative, I submit, because it asks us -- through its casting and re-casting of the same actors as souls in various incarnations -- to understand one possible aspect or force of universal, constant human existence. 

Perhaps the there is no sphere of the afterlife at all.  Perhaps our souls ride the wheel of the Samsara, hopefully achieving wisdom as that wheel turns.  And what we do here, now, affects where our soul lands when we return to this plane of existence.

Had different actors played all the important parts in Cloud Atlas, viewers would have no visual signifiers by which to recognize the same soul in different stories and different eras, and therefore we’d be unable to track their moral progress on the Samsara, in the “eternal recurrence” of human life. 

The film thus suggests, by casting the same actor as different individuals over a long span of time, that our lives stretch beyond this moment of now.  They go on.  The flesh is mortal, but the soul is not.  We keep repeating the same mistakes, surrounded by the same souls, until we learn to change our behaviors, or until we reach the outcome we desire and need.

None of this philosophy would be evident, however, without Cloud Atlas’s complex structure.  The film reflexively notes its own complexity in an early voice-over narration by Cavendish (Broadbent): “While my extensive experience as an editor has led me to disdain for flashbacks and flash forwards and all such tricksy gimmicks, I believe that if you, dear reader, can extend your patience for just a moment, you will find that there is a method to this tale of madness.”

That line of dialogue -- that explicit request for patience and understanding -- is at the heart of Cloud Atlas’s ambitious strategy to chart the full human experience.  Since “we’re all connected,” the film requires the audience to engage with its creative strategy.  This task of engagement and attention is richly rewarded however.  Audiences that meet the film half-way will feel part of a process of discovery…and then experience joy and awe as that discovery unfolds, and layer after layer of meaning blossoms.


“I knew someone who had a birthmark similar to that…”

Much of the challenge and joy that arises from an engaged viewing of Cloud Atlas involves noting and cataloging the little touches or grace notes that connect souls from one story (or level of the Samsara) to the next. 

For instance, a comet-shaped birth mark appears on one character in each of the six tales, and then the film ends with a shooting star -- a comet of sorts -- as its valedictory composition.  Is this comet-shaped birth mark ticking off the levels of the Samsara, ending with a valediction in the cosmos, in Eternity itself?  Is it a signifier of the same soul, moving through various levels of the Samsara?  Again, the film opens itself to various stimulating and challenging interpretations.

Similarly, a jeweled button that appears in “The Pacific Journal of Patrick Ewing” re-appears again and again throughout history (or the future), owned by different individuals.

And all six levels of the Samsara are connected by a work of art featured prominently in the previous level of existence.

Frobisher in Story #2 reads Ewing’s diary from Story #1 

Luisa Rey in Story #3 listens to Frobisher’s musical composition, Cloud Atlas, from Story #2, and so on. 

Not only does music play a crucial role in the film, but a movie version of Cavendish’s tale appears in the fifth story, and a viral video from the fifth story plays a role in the sixth and final vignette. 

In toto, therefore, Cloud Atlas seems to note that art -- whether literature, music, film, or even a web video -- is the thing ties humans together on the Samsara from one life or level to the next. 

In other words, our art is as immortal as we are, and it carries our stories and histories into the unbound future. 

We can learn from that art if we heed it, and we ignore it at our own peril. This notion of art outliving individuals and proving of great value to future generations is transmitted beautifully in a line of dialogue: “My life extends far beyond the limits of me.” 

That extension of life may be in the soul itself, or it may be in the thoughts transcribed in a book, or the musical notes of a composition. It may be in a movie that speaks to the future, though it was made in the past.


What is an ocean but a multitude of drops?

The interconnections between the six stories in the film stretch even further. In all six tales featured in Cloud Atlas, a crime is committed based on craven selfishness and thirst for power.  This selfishness or power-thirst is tellingly described in at least three different stories as being part and parcel of “The Natural Order.”  
Consider:

The Natural Order permits for the slave-trader, Haskell, to do his exploitative work. 

The Natural Order permits for the murder of whistle-blowers and the furtherance of avaricious corporate goals in 1973 San Francisco.

The Natural Order allows the State to abuse and cannibalize its Fabricants in New Seoul, and so forth (a fact foretold, uniquely, by a joke about Soylent Green [1973] in the previous story, set in 2012).  

Virtually every conflict in every story featured in Cloud Atlas lands a pair of soul-mates up against proponents of some Natural Order.  And the Natural Order always seems to possess the superior hand.

As Haskell, the slave trader notes in the first story: “There is a natural order to this world, and those who try to upend it do not fare well. This movement will never survive; if you join them, you and your entire family will be shunned. At best, you will exist a pariah to be spat at and beaten-at worst, to be lynched or crucified. And for what? For what? No matter what you do it will never amount to anything more than a single drop in a limitless ocean.

This plot-line represents the film’s embedded social critique of “Natural Order” and the so-called “Natural Order’s” vehicle on this mortal coil: anarcho-capitalism for lack of a better term.

An out-of-control and merciless capitalist buys and sells human flesh in “The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing.” 

The importance of status -- or “reputation” -- in a capitalist class-system is what drives blackmail and exploitation in “Letters from Frobisher.” 

The desire to control energy resources (at the height of the Energy Crisis in 1973, no less) is what drives Lloyd Hooks to contemplate the murder of thousands of innocent people in “Half-Lives…” 

Timothy Cavenish ends up at the nursing home while running away from a $60,000 dollar debt in “Ordeal.” 

The economic system of New Seoul mass produces people to be slaves to hedonist  “consumers,” and then cannibalizes those man-made people when they can no longer work, in “An Orison of Sonmi-451.”

And finally, the battle to control food and other resources dominates the final story, with the Kona Clan operating as the ultimate corporate raiders/cannibals. 

More than once in the film, we hear the mantra of Natural Order spoken aloud, and with hungry salaciousness: “The weak are meat, and the strong must eat.’

The point to all this is simply that when the goal of humanity is to control power or own supreme wealth rather than better oneself (and find true love…), crimes are born instead of kindnesses…and karma’s a bitch. 

In at least three of the stories (“Letters from Frobisher,” “Half-Lives” and “Orison…”) the meeting of souls together in true love is brutally curtailed by the forces of the so-called “Natural Order.”  In other stories, however (Ewing’s, Cavendish’s and Zachry’s), true love is victorious over the Natural Order because kindnesses, not crimes, carry the day.

Soul-mates threatened by the "natural order."

The same soul-mates, in another place and time.
The answer to the question posed by one character in the film – “why do we keep making the same mistakes?” – is simply that Natural Order, aligned with the levers of power, often seizes the day over the better angels of man’s nature.  But it’s a constant battle, and for that reason, our souls “cross and re-cross our own/old paths,” trying to achieve justice…and happiness.


“This world spins from the same unseen forces that twist our hearts…”

In the second story, Frobisher composes “The Cloud Atlas,” a sextet, and from this work the film derives its title and its structure. 

But today, I gaze at a science fiction film of such scope, ambition, and convention-shattering that I can’t help but think of “cloud” computing too.  With cloud computing, a program can run on multiple computers at the same time, networked together. 

That technological term therefore seems like a good analogy for our “interconnected” souls.  We’re all here on this planet together, right now, and according to Cloud Atlasthe gulf between us” is but an “illusion.”  In how we treat each other, we create a map -- or atlas -- a network of bonds, of loves and hates, stretching outward and into the future, and reverberating through the very corridors of existence.

In the end, like Frobisher suggests, perhaps we all become, art or music. 

And if that is the case, wouldn’t you rather your eternal song be one of harmony, not dissonance? 

17 comments:

  1. This is great! A rosetta stone for me to help me figure out this movie!

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    1. Hi Phil! I hope the review proves worthy in that regard! The film is multi-layered, but truly beautiful...

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  2. Anonymous11:49 AM

    "While my extensive experience as an editor has led me to disdain for flashbacks and flash forwards and all such tricksy gimmicks, I believe that if you, dear reader, can extend your patience for just a moment, you will find that there is a method to this tale of madness.”

    VERY perceptive sound byte. When my wife and I started watching this, I don't know what the time mark was, but we looked at each other and I announced, "if something doesn't happen in the next five minutes, I'm shutting this off." Thirty seconds later a literary critic was defenestrated. Haha.

    I'm glad we stuck with it. It really is one of the finest, most humanistic and transcendent movies of recent years, and certainly one of the more thoughtful sci fi movies to come down the pike in a very long time (I think Gattaca was the last that moved me emotionally in this way). It does demand your full attention. I need to give it another go.

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    1. Hi Ed,

      I just love that the filmmakers have the audacity to -- within the actual text of the film -- essentially ask for the audience's patience.

      How can we say no, when the filmmaker's so amusingly and directly ask us to step up?

      In that way, the film really demands an engaged and positive audience I think.

      I love your description of Cloud Atlas: "one of the finest, most humanistic and transcendent movies of recent years..." -- I couldn't agree more!

      Great comment.

      best,
      John

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  3. Another great review, John. I loved "Cloud Atlas", and for all these same reasons that you cite here. What also very much impressed me was the skill of the adaptation. I was a big fan of the book on its initial release, and it was often put forward as being impossible to transfer to screen. The Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer produced a great example here of how to transport the essence of a novel for the cinema without being slavish to the text, but yet being utterly faithful its essence.

    Incidentally, I'm really bad at coming up with lists, and so hadn't contributed to your Top Ten sci-fi movies of the millennium to date—in part as, perhaps surprisingly, not many of my favourite films fit the genre! But, if I had done so, then "Cloud Atlas" would most certainly have been nudging towards the top of that list. It's a superb piece of work.

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    1. Thank you for your kind words, Adam. I am glad to read that the movie is indeed faithful to its source material. I have not (as yet) read the book, so that was one aspect I could not meaningfully comment on it. But I am happy to read you describe the film as being "utterly faithful" to the novel's essence...

      For me, Cloud Atlas is in the top ten of the span we just covered (I had it at fourth). It's dazzling in its attempts to transcend conventional structure, and meaningful in what it has to say...

      Thank you for a great comment!

      best,
      John

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  4. When I watched this on its initial theatrical run, not knowing but hearing of the novel, I almost walked out on it in the first 10 minutes. The structure left me wondering if it was done for an audience without much of an attention span. However, once I got beyond that, this film turned me around completely. Registering in unexpected ways. Glad to know you're a fan of the film, John. Thanks.

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    1. Hi Le0pard13:

      I can only imagine how difficult this movie would be to reckon with in the theater, right off the street, with the kind of distractions you can get in an auditorium these days.

      I was fortunate to watch the film in one sitting, with no interruptions, on an HDTV. Somehow, I feel like that probably made it easier to stick with, and let soak over me.

      But yes, I am a fan!

      best,
      John

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  5. Why do I always end up being the bad guy here?

    Part 1

    This movie was mediocre at best. Watching it, I kept recalling the scene of an obsessed Roy Neary sculpting a plate of mashed potatoes into the Devil’s Tower: "This means something. This is important." Such is the pretense waxed and postured ad infinitum throughout Cloud Atlas.

    Now, I would agree that, as accurately detailed in your review, this film does have content and that said content is indeed echoed by form, but it’s difficult for me to appreciate such a mechanism either way when the philosophy in question is so philosophically bankrupt. The film’s preaching is concise; what it preaches is horseshit. Sorry, I just don’t buy into any of this 'we’re-all-connected' karma. It’s gauzy, new age fluff devoid of nuts 'n' bolts reasoning necessary to understand first principles. This notion that the same soul is reincarnated through different lives only defers from any one of these lives the responsibility of the individual’s actions.

    What difference does it make to Broadbent’s Ayrs of 1936 if the moral consequences of his actions -- the so-called karmic comeuppance -- is suffered by Broadbent’s Cavendish of 2012? Ayrs will never know this future life, he will never be conscious of it. Just as crucially, if not more so, why should Cavendish be taxed for a wrong he did not commit? Because it makes for poetic symmetry? Actions define us, actions in the here and now. They’re objective and can be quantified. A "soul" cannot. It’s an empty, Hallmark sentiment ideal for propagating such pseudo-philosophical beliefs that waver empirical discipline by placating to people’s feelings. It isn’t even philosophy at all, really. It’s spiritualism, and it’s silly.

    You write:

    "This plot-line represents the film’s embedded social critique of "Natural Order" and the so-called "Natural Order’s" vehicle on this mortal coil: anarcho-capitalism for lack of a better term."

    Eh, there are about half-a-dozen or more better terms, as anarcho-capitalism has nothing whatsoever to do with the evils depicted in this film. A free market or free trade is predicated on the principles of free-dom; not only the freedom to act, but the freedom from action as well. When force is initiated and individual rights violated, it ain’t anarcho-capitalism. The circumstances that contributed to slavery throughout history or corrupt corporatism during the energy crises of the early 70s (or mega-corporatism of any kind, really) were those of a blatant crony system where state power of one form or another is the central agent of abuse. The economic system depicted in the New Seoul segment is one existing under statism through and through, Cavendish is $60,000 in debt to criminals, not morally conscious people who respect other’s rights, and the Kona Clan seen in the distant, primitive future are not corporate raiders and cannibals -- or, at least, certainly not a group practicing any kind of voluntary system -- they’re just raiders and cannibals, period. Associating any of this with anarcho-capitalism is beyond thin. Unfortunately, concerning the film, I agree with your assessment that such was part of its thematic aim, albeit loosely.

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    1. Cannon,

      Sorry I didn't respond last night to your comments. It was late, and I wanted to give you the response your thoughtful comments deserve.

      First, you are no bad guy.

      As I've said before, it would be dull beyond measure if we all saw movies the same way.

      Fact is, you are an exquisite sparring partner, and I always learn something from your comments and ideas. Always. As in "universally." So glad to see you!

      Now, you've read my review, so you know I'm going to disagree with you.

      First, I must disagree fully with your description of the film's philosophy as New Age Fluff.

      There are no crystals, auras, or good vibrations to be found anywhere here.

      Rather, Cloud Atlas relates directly to reincarnation of the soul, a philosophical concept that goes back to the Iron Age, to the 6th century BC, to the Druids, Greeks, Indians, etc.

      The belief originated as a kind of recreation of the Earth's apparent "life" cycle: seasons of life, death, and renewal every year. The human soul was thought to go through the same steps and same cycle.

      Buddhism also goes back to that period (6th century BCE), and the concepts here, as I hope my review pointed out, are outright symbols for Buddhist ones (the Samsara is the film's eternal recurrence, and karma is very much the point of the soul's journey through the 6 stages.)

      So you can, yes, personally, term the film's philosophy fluffy or new age-y, but those terms don't actually fit the facts. These are ancient philosophies of man, not fresh-made hokum. You may not like it or groove on it, but that's a personal assessment and not a knock against the movie's quality.

      I do agree with you, however, that the film concerns spirituality and matters of the soul, as much as philosophy. I am not a Buddhist, so I don't believe those things, either (though, to quote Mulder, I Want to Believe), but in reviewing and judging a film I don't have to approve of the belief system, instead I merely discuss how effectively and artistically the belief system is expressed. In this case, as you grant me, the film's form expresses the content. Bingo!

      I happen to think the idea of music and art granting immortality is quite beautiful, and I do believe that we are all connected. How can we not be? We all share a planet spinning through space and darkness.I think it's a beautiful message, but I don't have to buy into reincarnation or Buddhism to feel that way.

      I also understand your point regarding one iteration of the soul getting off scot-free while the next pays the karmic price. The point is well-taken, but plays again in Cloud Atlas's favor. The film is clearly trying to gaze at humanity from the distance of generations, from the sweep of cosmic history. It is trying to imagine a cosmic frame of order, in other words. I think it is to be commended for doing this, and for breaking, essentially, the conventions that Hollywood typically enforces in storytelling. We have lots of stories of an individual defeating bad guys and righting wrongs. Why not a film that steps back and looks at that idea over a huge, sweeping span of human history and future? The moral arc of history...why not? Why can't one movie be indulged in that endeavor?

      I agree with you to some degree regarding anarcho-capitalism. It's clear that those who practice exploitation are using the excuse of the Natural Order, and to some degree have permission from the State to do so....they possess power in other words, and that power, in these arenas, flows from the state.

      It gets complicated because rampant corporatism (fascism) is no different than Statism, and in fact, often sponsored by statism (as I think is the case in the New Seoul segment). Both extremes look alike.

      I do feel the film is about the idea of people usurping the freedoms of others for their own self gain or avarice, without consequence to the social, human ramifications.

      In broad (very broad) terms, that is anarcho capitalism.

      Next!

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  6. Part 2

    As a pure cinematic experience, Cloud Atlas is hit and miss, though said hits are, at best, superficially pretty. Recreations of the past, notably the 19th and early 20th century settings, are both sweeping and meticulous while attempted grand visions of the future, in terms of conceptual imagery and its renderings, do not fare as well, succumbing to your typical dystopic metropolis that feels like a slightly less chintzy version of Ultraviolet together with a distant primitive world where Apocalypto meets The Flintstones.

    The Wachowskis are big on close-ups coupled with loud, arty, symmetrical framing, and further deal in a rapidly edited shot flow that (over)articulates virtually every other face, bodily movement and insert through nonstop coverage. It’s all very clear and coherent, sleek and poised, to be sure, but I often wish the siblings would pull back a bit from their favored style to allow for some more memorable in-camera blocking through disciplined master shots. What we always, inevitably get is a lopsided visual vocabulary of one meaningful, darkly shaded close-up of a character after another and another and so on and so forth, to such an extent that quickly wears thin the inherent power of such framing, reducing the whole thing to a glossy, near three hour Panasonic commercial high on self-importance.

    I’ve been told that this film is a brilliant, innovative work of editorial storytelling, though I fail to see how or why. Does it strive for an ambitious narrative? Well, there was a lot of it, if that counts. What the Wachowskis have done here might be considered bold in terms of sheer volume, but the idea of parallel narratives is nothing new. These multiple, coinciding storylines, each with their own settings and timeframes, only have to mirror each other thematically, while never having to connect narratively. Therefore, the cumulative experience of seeing them cut together amounts to little more than a channel changing experience that’s been synced in tandem all cutesy-like; adroitly executed but hardly groundbreaking. Really, it’s no different than any other film that merely cuts to different set pieces occurring simultaneously. Lucas and Co. did the same thing way back, some 30 years ago with the triple climax for Return of the Jedi.

    Ironically, the Wachowskis’ own Speed Racer (still their best film to date) presented a far greater challenge in having to shift nonlinearly through a singular narrative without disorientating their audience or disrupting the overall story-flow, and it was a challenge they met with a wonderful, buoyant use of glazing screenwipes and pop-anime aesthetics. Cloud Atlas by comparison feels rote, and its interlocking stories and locales are never allowed to breathe mural-like; worlds are not so much illustrated or explored through lasting imagery or memorable visual narratives as they are merely passed by in glib fashion. Thus the intended epic scope of the whole falls to short shrift as an endless montage of faces and places, or a catalog of period interior décor. Perhaps this was unavoidable given the density of the material.

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    1. Hi Cannon,

      Well, I also love Speed Racer! We share that affection. I think it is a seriously underrated film.

      I understand your perspective on visuals, while I don't believe it to be an accurate one.

      I feel that in this case, while attempting to anchor us to the cosmic import of the story, the film does focus a lot on human faces (often under layers of make-up).

      Those faces are the same and yet different, and, of course, that's the point.

      There is something familiar (the soul) and something unfamiliar (the body) there at the same time, and it is only through reckoning that we begin to slowly grasp the connection between time periods.

      Would there have been another, more lyrical way to accomplish this?

      Well, I don't know. I will say this, the transitions are often masterful, in my opinion, with a pertinent line of dialogue hanging over a scene change that visually illustrates the point being made at that juncture. This occurs more and more frequently as the film goes on, building to a kind of fever pitch of interweaving connections. I wouldn't say it is revolutionary or trail-blazing, necessarily, just very effective, and again, that's all that's required.

      This is a "journey" kind of film, not a "destination" kind of film, and the thrill is not in specifically where the story ends, but in how the separate lines of fate grow closer and closer together, and stitch together something new and meaningful. The editing, especially as the film goes on, reflects that idea.

      I am aware of your fondness for Lucas and Return of the Jedi, but the triple climax there, while building momentum and excitement, is about three pieces sliding together contemporaneously for an explosive and effective climax.

      Cloud Atlas operates to rather different ends, I think, generating waterfalls of recognition and understanding as hard-to-assemble details suddenly fall and lock into place, like a puzzle, and the new frame of order -- the film's larger backdrop -- becomes apparent and comprehensible.

      There is no putting together of an opaque puzzle in the admittedly exciting Return of the Jedi We're watching a confluence of events, exciting and thrilling, but that's it.

      So I'm not putting down Return of the Jedi, but I don't think it's exactly the historical corollary that makes the point. I don't know if there is one. There may be.

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  7. Part 3

    Most of the action, suspense and spectacle throughout the film, to me, felt random and nonsensical even when it technically wasn’t. For my part, I suspect this has more to do with the fact that I never really cared about what was happening from one dramatic sequence to the next. Only a couple of moments of intense violence -- one involving a silencer; the other, a desperate Tom Hanks with a knife -- left me stirred. Otherwise, I viewed the story from a mostly detached perspective, checking my watch with greater frequency after the third hour mark. This goes back to the lack of interesting ideas. Oh, sure, the film is replete with sanctimonious fortune cookie insight about destiny and the universal fabric ("What is any ocean but a multitude of drops?" ...ugh! *eyes roll out of Cannon's skull*) but it never proposes any mystery, neither plot-oriented nor philosophical, that I found truly compelling. I was actually kinda hoping for a more science fictiony approach to the premise of space-time interconnectivity by exploring how it might actually work on a metaphysical level, but what I got instead was mere soapy rhetoric instead of an intellectual pursuit of-and-for the mind. Again, the film never falters in making its points. I just don’t think its points are all that intelligent.

    To streamline my argument as best I can, if you’ve seen the 5 minute trailer for Cloud Atlas, you’ve seen Cloud Atlas. For what does the film really add to its armchair spiritual conceit that isn’t already spoon-fed by the trailer instead of, well, more of the same? Come to think of it, the whole movie is basically just a self-inflated trailer, as if for nearly three hours it’s merely selling the idea of some other, actual Cloud Atlas movie where meaningful substance goes beyond the generic tagline on its poster.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Cannon,

      More good, thoughtful remarks here.

      First, a Muir rule: you can't blame a movie for its trailer.

      A trailer and a feature film have expressly different purposes.

      One seeks to get butts in a theater, the other operates on the premise that the butts are already there, and wish to be entertained and enlightened.

      And secondly, knowing in advance that Cloud Atlas is about eternal recurrence, reincarnation and Buddhism no more spoils the film than knowing that Star Wars is a sci-fi fantasy recreation of the Campbell Mono-Myth -- as pastiche -- spoils that film.

      Your commentary about Cloud Atlas seeming "self-inflated" makes it seem like you think the film is self-righteous or self-important in some fashion. I didn't see it that way.

      Near the movie's beginning there's that deliberate voice-over from Cavendish that practically pleads for the viewer/reader's indulgence going forward.

      Most Hollywood movies don't have the humility or grace to ask for patience, and this one does. So I see Cloud Atlas as the exact opposite of self-inflated.

      I do agree with you that there is a simple thought at the heart of Cloud Atlas. And that thought is: what you do now, matters in the future, and has a ripple effect on the future. But I think that the way that simple idea (conveyed in the trailer) is made to represent a cosmic frame of order, is very worthwhile, original, and yes, ambitious.

      I think the sci-fi surprise of the film that you sought in the film is the hint (featured in the Frobisher segment) that time is not linear, and that we all -- in some way -- have insight about the future and our soul's journey through the Samsara.

      Ayrs imagines the world of New Seoul, specifically, which doesn't yet exist if we believe in the concept of linear time, and not the idea of the eternal moment of now (a series of snapshots).

      So there is some quantum physics -- at least a dash -- there. I don't disagree that the film might have benefited from more. But that might have really tipped the scales towards incomprehensibility.

      Best,
      John

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    2. Oh, trust me, I am the bad guy. I rip the tags off mattresses and I once laughed out loud at a funeral. Villains rock.

      Granted, the spiritual beliefs of the soul concerning reincarnation date back throughout human history, but the film’s manner of appropriation just comes off, well, like an introductory pamphlet that’s passed around a yoga class at some health spa in Desert Hot Springs, California. Maybe such an effect is unavoidable for any modern version of these age-old beliefs ...or maybe I’m just being mean. I don’t mind the film stepping back to view time-spanning events from a cosmic perspective and further proceeding with the premise that the characters of each storyline are somehow rhythmically, metaphysically linked. I’ll even acknowledge the competent use of visual motifs and layered editing that maintains this thematic through-line. Yet, for reasons mentioned, I just don’t see how a moral arc can be applied insofar that one should atone for the evil actions of a past life or course correct their own actions at the service of a future life.

      Another case where I think the Wachowskis fared better with a similar related concept was the rippling chain of events in V for Vendetta, where backstory and exposition was multi-threaded into a single stream of consciousness pouring out of different characters as they remember the past or summarize it into a coherent cause, or predict through gut feeling the events yet to transpire. That film, too, pedestaled the power of art -- acting, theatricality and music -- in part by using lies to tell the truth, as a means to topple Fascism. Maybe there was something more gung ho about its masked vigilante ferocity that appealed to my nature in contrast to the weepy platitudes of Cloud Atlas. I don’t know.

      Lastly, I don’t blame the film’s trailer. Quite the contrary, everything I got from the film I already got from the trailer, more succinctly (the same thing happened with Benjamin Button and Super 8). All the film managed to do, for me, anyways, was drag out the highlights to the point of tedium.

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  8. Thanks for the review on this one John. I'm curious to see it, but that 3 hour run time is quite a commitment. The trailers reminded me of a forgotten Robin William film from the 1990s called "Being Human", which also followed a single soul over several centuries making the same mistakes and trying to move beyond his lot in life. I remember finding it interesting but not terribly involving. Sounds like "Cloud Atlas" took a similar idea but widened the scope.

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  9. Anonymous9:02 AM

    Hi John

    Long time reader, first time poster! I always enjoy your reviews so keep up the good work.

    I recently watched Cloud Atlas and there are not many films where you can get completely immersed in a cinematic experience. As soon as the film ended I wanted to watch it again!

    I completely agree with everything you said. I also would like to mention how words also became a way to express the connection/rebirth. In some cases, words (expressed by others) became an inspiration to fight back against the system or the "natural order". For example in the distant post apocalyptic future, the words from Sonmi-451 became like a bible, which gave the human civilisation hope to survive.

    I like that idea and it's no different to how people still read books written by Dickens or Shakespeare for example and still find meanings in their words and how it resonates in today's world. I touch upon this is my own review of the film - http://confessionsfromageekmind.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/what-is-an-ocean-but-a-multitude-of-drops-cloud-atlas-review/

    It's a shame that Cloud Atlas wasn't recognised during the Oscar award season. Even if the story was lost amongst the critics, visually and musically it was stunning.

    I'll be watching this film again very soon.

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