Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, James D'Arcy, Hugh Grant and Susan Sarandon
Based on the novel by David Mitchell
Screenplay by Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer
Directed by Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer
The Wachowski Brothers, Larry and Andy,
made a huge name for themselves in Hollywood with The Matrix, a
science fiction action film that was so unique and dazzling that it
ended up making Star Wars – Episode I be remembered as the
other sci fi movie on 1999. The two were hailed as geniuses,
visionaries, and the next Stanley Kubrick and John Woo rolled into
one (well, two, I suppose.). Naturally, this kind of meteoric rise to
stardom and power would often leads to a spectacular crash, and being
the overachievers that they are, Larry and Andy decided that they
would crash not once, but three times, and in the most spectacular
fashion. The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions succeeded in
making sci fi fans finally learn to appreciate Star Wars – Episode
I, and the astoundingly awful Speed Racer left audiences saying
“Actually, you know what else George Lucas did that wasn't really
that bad? Howard
the Duck.” In fact,
the only truly interesting thing the brothers did after The
Matrix was to produce V
For Vendetta, a bold and
interesting film that is remembered once a year, every year, on the
day that by all rights should be spent honoring Back
To The Future.
But it was inevitable that The
Wachowski's would try again, this time without the aid of Larry's
penis. To compensate for it's absence, the duo brought on director
Tom Tykwer (Run, Lola Run) to help them tackle one of the most
ambitious projects in recent memory: a film adaptation of David
Mitchell's thoroughly unfilmable novel Cloud Atlas.
Cloud Atlas consists of six nested stories that range from the nineteenth century to a distant, post-apocalyptic future, and from the seas of the Pacific to Belgium and Korea. The film jumps from story to story, following the same actors playing a variety of characters, sometimes in very heavy makeup.
Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgeons) is a guileless American on an ocean voyage, who befriends a slave named Autua (David Gyasi) sometime in the 1850's; Robert Frobisher (Ben Whishaw) is a penniless young English musician in 1931, finds work as an amanuensis to a a great composer (Jim Broadbent) living in Belgium; Luisa Rey (Halle Berry) is a young journalist is 1975 who investigates reports that a new nuclear power plant is unsafe; Timothy Cavendish, (Jim Broadbent) is a 65-year-old publisher who is forced to flee from the brothers of his gangster client (Tom Hanks) and gets confined against his will in a nursing home from which he cannot escape; (Doona Bae) is a genetically-engineered fabricant (a clone) in a dystopian Korea in the distant future, and Zachry (Tom Hanks), is a tribesman living a primitive life after most of humanity dies during "the Fall," who is visited by Meronym (Halle Berry), a member of the last remnants of technologically-advanced civilization.
We jump from plot to plot, time to time, and place to place, with what often seems like no warning or motivation, until eventually a cohesive rhythm begins to unfold, and a story begins to take shape, which is mirrored in the story of Frobusher composing his masterpiece, the Cloud Atlas sextet. The stories being to tie together not only by recurring actors, but by recurring themes (the oppression of the slave Autua is is intertwined not only with that of Sonmi~451, but of Frobusher, who is forced to hide his homosexuality in fear that that it will destroy his reputation and any chance of success.). Ultimately, each story joins together to make a statement about the nature of existence and the complexity, as well as the subtle simplicity, of mankind.
The film is complicated, grandiose, and sometimes quite maddening, but it's also completely mesmerizing. The three directors, who split up to tell different parts of the story, manage to create order out of chaos and bring this gargantuan epic together into something that is visually stunning and amazingly, quite satisfying as a narrative story. This may be the most expensive experimental film ever made, and it's likely to lose a lot of audiences. It asks for your undivided attention and patience, and for you to be willing to trust and feel what you can't quite explain. In short, Cloud Atlas is a symphony on screen.
Some plots are better than others – Broadbent's adventures in the nursing home are a movie that is worth the price of admission all by itself, while Berry's investigative journalist story never truly grabbed me – but there was never a point when I found myself thinking “drop this story and move to another one.” I remained thoroughly engaged throughout.
This is a movie that some will love, some will hate, and many will simply be confused by. It will , most certainly, not be embraced as an instant classic in its time – but neither was 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Cloud Atlas is rated R for violence, profanity, brief nudity, and sex .
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