Cloud Atlas: A Review

"Cloud Atlas" is the movie adaption of a novel of the same name by David Mitchell.  It is a mammoth undertaking. The movie is structurally burdened by six separate story lines (an attorney being poisoned by his physician, a gay composer struggling with his mentor, a journalist exposing a fraud, a publisher unwillingly committed to a nursing home, a cloned slave who leads a rebellion, a villager in a post-apocalyptic society on a quest) in six separate times in six separate geographies. (The Pacific Islands, 1800's; Belgium, 1930's; San Francisco, 1970's; London, 2012; Seoul, 2144 and Hawaii, in some distant future.) The movie then accepts several more arbitrary burdens. There are three directors, Tom Twkyer from “Run Lola Run” and Andy and Lana nee Larry Wachowski from “The Matrix” trilogy". Several parts are played by the same actor and these parts cross ethnic, racial, cultural and gender confines. While all the stories involve an awakening of sorts, some are personal, some are cultural and one is comedic silliness. Several are deadly serious but two are so outlandish that they can not help but laugh at themselves, one during a murder.

Throughout the movie the audience searches for unifying principles. There seem to be some. Slavery or restraint appears frequently, a tattoo recurs over time, references to previous stories are accidentally revealed with found manuscripts or recurring music and, of course, the actors reappear as different entities. But the search for a greater concept is not rewarding. There does seem to be the unifying notion that we, all people, have a common bond, that no man is alone and that great notions and works survive and recur from age to age. But there is no pattern in this recurrence. There is no Buddhist-like idea of gradual purification or meliorism. The reappearance of the same actors seems self-indulgent, an exhibition or a display rather than a theme. And there is the matter of director Lana nee Larry Wachowski who said in an interview she wanted to educate transphobic people “who want to lynch me, who want to crucify me.”

These problems aside, this is an entertaining film. It is three hours long and the time flew. The problem occurs in the intimation of something bigger here, something afoot more than just a fun film, and that promise is distracting (and unfilled) as the audience tries to reconstruct it within the movie. Once that search for a bigger and more profound concept is put to rest, the film is enjoyable.

And there certainly are some lessons one can learn: Do not bring too much of yourself to work, continuity is not guaranteed by similar tattoos, universality is not guaranteed by disparate scenes and make-up and, during an apocalyptic struggle, it is best if the good guys are better armed.