Do you know the good feeling after watching a great movie? Being more or less of a movie ”freak” I get this feeling a lot. One day as I was strolling down the movie section of a supermarket I found this movie called ”Cloud Atlas”. I instantly started reading the back of the box as I saw the familiar faces of Tom Hanks and Halle Berry on the cover. Not only was this movie loaded with these two well known actors but it also featured Ben Wishaw (my upcoming favorite Q in the James Bond franchise), Hugh Grant and Jim Broadbent. I had to buy it. When I got home I curled up on my bed and surrounded myself with a mountain of pillows and blankets (as usual) and stated the movie.
After watching the movie I felt more than a little baffled as this three hour spectacle had literally melted my brain. Don’t get me wrong the movie was really good (at least when you watch it the second time) but at the same time one of the most complex and confusing storylines ever written. The story is about a reincarnation of a soul travelling through different times (six to be exact). The earliest story is set on a voyage over the Pacific in the 19th century. The second one is about a talented young composer in the 1930’s Britain followed by a female journalist who’s investigating suspicious action in a 1970’s nuclear power plant in the US. The story moves on into modern day (2012) as a farce about a publisher’s imprisonment in a nursing home and then the story changes into a sci-fi-like thriller set in the 2144’s Seoul. Last bit of the story happens in the post-apocalyptic Hawaii, where quite adorable tribesmen try to interact with more advanced people and at the same time try to stay alive with cannibals hunting them.
Now if you think that was a lot to digest, bare with me, there’s more. You see, not only is the connection between the stories incredibly thin but also every one of them are cut into pieces and scrambled across the timeline of the movie. And by this time you should know why I was so confused. Due the fact that the movie actually was scrambled, I thought I’d be fun to explain the stories unchronologically. I’d like to begin with the one about futuristic South Korea.
The story is set in rebuilt capital, that is called Neo Seoul (New Seoul), because the old one is almost completely flooded. A clone waitress starts thinking differently compared to her zombie-like sisters. They all work like slaves in a diner called Papa Song, start their day getting new robes, work like crazy all day and end their night with a juice box -looking meal they call ”soap”. The curious waitress, Somni, begins to be envious towards her promoted colleagues and to be interested in the outside world (that she has never seen). When a waitress after waitress is promoted and transferred into the mysterious unknown outside the doors of Papa Song, she gets a chance of her own to get out of the diner.
When the story moves back into the 70’s, a small-business journalist, Luisa Rey, is investigating a conspiracy case in a new nuclear power plant in San Francisco. She meets Rufus Sixsmith, a nuclear scientist, who has vital information for her about the events happening in the plant. Later on they discover that the plant’s owner is plotting to blow up his plant and make it look like an accident in order to get huge profits from different oil businesses. Later Sixsmith is shown with old letters from his English lover from the 30’s. In this moment the audience should realize that Rufus Sixsmith already featured in the story set in the 1930’s England.
This story is really about a talented young bisexual composer Robert Frobisher who is dying to get an assistant job from a widely known master composer. He manages to get the job and after a while starts working with his own new masterpiece called ”Cloud Atlas” (the record is also mentioned in the story about the 70’s). After being completely mocked by his employer Robert runs away with his unfinished work and hides somewhere in England (probably Cambridge). He finally finishes his composing and decides to end his own life with a pistol in a bathtub.
Then we move on to the ”latest” story, happening in a post-apocalyptic Hawaii after 2300. The world has regressed and the main characters are presented as odd tribesmen speaking with a funky accent and trying to survive from a cannibalistic enemy tribe. Later on a strange foreigner arrives on their island on a mission to find an abandoned star gate in the mountain the tribesmen shun. One of the villagers unwillingly takes the stranger to the mountain. It is revealed that the tribesmen consider Somni as a goddess.
The earliest story is about a voyage over the Pacific in the 19th century. A young lawyer, Adam Ewing, a potential slave owner, is returning home from a journey to the Chatham Islands where he was supposed to make a business arrangement with Reverend Gilles Horrox for his father-in-law. On the way back he meets a Maori slave stowaway who claims to be an excellent sailor and certain about the fact that he is able to earn his place on the ships crew. Later on they become friends.
And finally the one that is dated to modern day (2012). A small-business publisher, Timothy Cavendish, earns a lot of money from his latest publishing but ends up in huge debts after spending a lot of his profits. This farce-like story moves on to him asking money from his brother with no good outcome. The brother locks Timothy in a nursing home. The rest of the story is about him and few other elders trying to escape the home.
This movie gives you an intoxicating sense of individual purpose, when everything is connected across the years by a letter, a film, a diary or a book that passes on from one predecessor’s thought to another’s. It also asks if the eternal repetition can be changed by love and sacrifice. In my opinion Cloud Atlas belongs alongside such mystical works as The Life of Pi and Inception.
Cloud Atlas is a story of a reincarnation of a soul travelling across times. It is loaded with different kinds of symbols, metaphors and hidden meanings. It’s a story about love, devotion, passion, friendship, faith, courage, rebellion and much more. I have to say Cloud Atlas was one of those movies that are loaded with absolutely everything, only one thing separates this one from the others: it was executed perfectly. And even if you were bored whilst watching this movie you still get this mixed feeling of confusion and happiness through it. And I like that the movie is trying to give us the message that even when you pass away your actions and choices take part in another time and place no matter who you are. And even though it’s a quite rough movie to watch it gives you this heartwarming thought that even your smallest actions can really matter in this universe. If I’d have to explain this movie in one word, it probably would be overwhelming, for obvious reasons.
When you decide to watch this movie the second time you understand so much more about the connections and secrets of the film. This is just one of those films that you can watch over and over again and always find out something new. I just have to say well done, Wachowski siblings and Tom Tykwer for directing this weird work of art – a masterpiece like The Cloud Atlas sextet in the movie. Now I’m not sure if I will ever understand all of the little details in the movie. Maybe I should watch it again and again and again but we all know that is not going to happen – at least, not in this life.
