Watched Cloud Atlas today and it was wonderful!
I truly mean it was full of wonder for me and my wife. Purposefully avoiding trailers and the like paid off. Beholding this flick with malnourished expectations enhanced my enjoyment
It is “Dense as Fuck” but in a great and savory way. I’ll simply say it is worth seeing.
OB
It is a feast for the eyes and the mind. It delighted, horrified, made me laugh, and cry; and kiss seven bucks goodbye. But it was a good and well spend three hours. I pondered it most of the day afterward, it is that good…
Can one person change the world? I say yes… One act at a time. A single act of kindness, or cruelty can effect those around us, and how many people do we interact with in a day? A week? A year? A LIFETIME? We effect others, and they in turn effect many others and so forth. So how would you like to affect the world?
“My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?”
In a year full of heavily commercialized drivel, eye candy and action fodder this was a refreshing change. Thank you Warchowski brothers for a marvelous film.
The wife and I saw it Saturday; we both liked it a lot and want to see it again on DVD.
In my opinion, there is a difference between the plots and the theme. Each of the six stories have their own plot, and therefore the movie is about different things. The theme they all share, though, is the innate drive of all people in all places and times to be free, and about the breakdown of those artificial categories of separation that act to prevent them from being free. In one story a self freed slave stows aboard a ship bound for England. In another, a reporter risks her life trying to uncover a conspiracy that would kill thousands and perpetuate the control of a small cartel of oil companies. In one distant future, a “Fabricant” (manufactured human servant) refuses to accept her role, and in an even further future a citizen of a hyper advanced people must get the help of a more primitive native in order to secure a future for both their people’s.
The connections are tenuous: the story of the lawyer who aids the slave is read by and inspires a 1940’s composer, who’s lover will become the scientist that first gets the reporter involved in the conspiracy. As explained by the Fabricant near the end of the movie, each person’s actions ripple throughout time touching people far beyond either our expectations or even understanding. That the man who published that expose of the oil companies would end up telling his own story of being imprisoned in a residency house, and that his story would inspire the actions of a Fabricant in the 22nd century, who would in-turn become the luminary voice in a far distant post-apocalyptic earth … could never have even been imagined by him.
Though they touch on the reincarnation thing (as in, characters meet for the first and feel a strong rapport, without other explanation) I don’t feel that is the primary theme of the movie. I saw much more of how one act of cruelty or kindness rippled through time and place affecting others, much more than I saw a mystical explanation.
There were phrases used throughout the stories that acted as a motif for acts of evil.
“The week are meat and the strong will eat.”
“There is a natural order to things, and everyone must accept their place in it.”
The movie is three hours long and there is a lot to unpack, if one is interested.
I was fascinated by Cloud Atlas.
At first I tried to follow it in a linear, logical way, but I quickly gave that up. Instead I was reminded of my experiences of treading water in a warm ocean. The waves carry you along, bobbing up and down. You can’t quite tell where you are or where you’re going, but if you stay relaxed, you’re ok. The experience is it own purpose.
I went back for a second viewing about a week later – I think I liked it. Still not sure.