Cloud Atlas
Starring: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry,
Directed By: Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski, Tom Twyker
Reviewed by Danielle Muir
[rating: 4.5/5]
In recent times the movies that are incarnations that have ‘filmed the unfilmable’ seem to be the screens’ greatest triumphs. Life of Pi managed to make a boy and a tiger floating on the ocean worthy of immense praise– however tackling Cloud Atlas was a different beast. Instead of making the sparse interesting, the Wachowski siblings had to wrangle six storylines with interconnecting characters happening simultaneously, across a vast range of worlds.
The result is captivating, intricate and somehow, completely clear.
To add a plot synopsis would be an exercise in futility – the brief version is that across varying time periods (spanning from the South Pacific in the 1800’s to ‘The Big Island’ in 2321) are characters that descend from one another – each experiencing their own independent plots with subtleties that tie back to their other incarnations. Confused? It translates stronger on film. A more succinct example is the opening – Jim Sturgess (1800’s) plays a dying lawyer en-route home. In Neo-Seoul (2144), he plays an Asian revolutionary struggling against the repression of his cities laws, freeing the waitress clone Soonmi-451, and on The Big Island (2321) he and his son are tribesmen slaughtered in the opening by the vicious Kona. Where he may endure heartbreak in one story, he finds love in another, and so it goes for the rest of the ensemble.
In terms of scriptwriting, the Wachowski’s have achieved an incredible feat by seamlessly weaving all the stories together at different intervals in a way that doesn’t confuse. There’s no chronological order to keep us grounded but somehow Cloud Atlas avoids the need for it. There are no faults to the casting either – with all throwing themselves into the extremely challenging task of portraying various races with aplomb.
Technically, it’s a marvel. Each location is portrayed with authenticity, right down to the minute details. Neo-Seoul especially is a computer-generated feast for the eyes, with the dark overtone contrasting the neon signs drawing from perceptions we already have, and amplifying them into a techno-future that doesn’t stretch imagination. But the element that both had the highest ability to fail and to cause controversy was of course the fact that the actors all play different ethnicities. Through a comprehensive blend of prosthetics and computer effects the actors are transformed into Asian, Caucasian and in Halle Berry’s case, white-skinned ethnicities by no means spotlessly, but enough for us to accept. I feel it’s a more gratifying experience to suspend your disbelief when it comes to aspects such as these, and throw your imagination into it as the actors have.
Cloud Atlas, thanks to its fearless creative minds, somehow unfolds like a flower in bloom – with dignity and grace. Thanks to its powerhouse cast, with the most honourable mentions given to Tom Hanks and Doona Bae, the glimpses we are given into the lives and worlds of its inhabitants can be pleasurable and heartbreaking. Truly an achievement in the manipulation of the narrative on screen.
