Your Thoughts on Cloud Atlas

It was the single most confusing viewing experience of my life. I had no idea what I was watching the whole time.

I liked it just fine.

Cloud Atlas (2012), directed by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis.

Six intercut stories, three in the past, one around "now", and two in the future. Exciting, poignant, tragic, funny: the human condition made vivid. Heart-wrenching at the climaxes.

Each time period has a "special" character, magically linked to characters in the other times. It is an ensemble cast with each actor playing many roles. Six actors get to play the special character once.

This is ambitious filmmaking emphasizing connections and correspondences. We have strong intimations of stepping outside of time and realizing that all life is One.

If we unravel the story and sort everything in time order:

• 1849: Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgess) has a dreadful experience in the Pacific and publishes his diary.
• 1936: Robert Frobisher (Ben Whishaw) reads the diary while composing the Cloud Atlas Symphony.
• 1973: journalist Luisa Rey (Halle Berry) reads Frobisher's letters and listens to his music.
• 2012: publisher Timothy Cavendish (Jim Broadbent) reads Rey's book.
• 2144: synthetic person Sonmi-451 (Doona Bae) sees a movie based on Cavendish's life.
• 2321: (106 years after The Fall) goat-herder Zachry (Tom Hanks) worships Sonmi, who has become a deity.

I think it would be a mistake to present the story in linear order like that. Shuffling the plots and meeting the actors again and again as different characters drives home the connections between and timelessness of everyone's soul.

The unifying theme of all the stories is their resistance to a certain type of evil that says "the weak are meat and the strong do eat". Each time features a struggle against that sort of domination.

It's 3 hours but the mix of stories and the ensemble cast give us something to watch. Cutting between six stories keeps the narrative moving. Reusing the actors emphasizes the theme of recurrence, sad as that may be in some cases.

Notes:

• Some details are explained in David Mitchell's book which flash by in the film, for example: each "special" character has a comet-shaped birthmark. As I recall each time period is visited only twice in the book. Film allows much more non-linearity, a good thing in this case.
• At first we suspect it might be a reincarnation story, but that's not quite right. Luisa Rey in 1973 and Timothy Cavendish in 2012 must have been living at the same time. Rather, we are given the insight that all life is One.
• James D'Arcy plays Rufus Sixsmith, the only character to appear in two stories: 1936 and 1973.
• The actors play different races and sexes throughout. The only strong objection I remember hearing was of D'Arcy's Asian makeup in 2144 Neo-Seoul. It does look so strange that I wondered if perhaps the people of the future were meant to be intentionally mutated, perhaps slightly synthetic themselves.
• Other recurring actors besides the special six and D'Arcy: Hugh Grant, Hugo Weaving, Susan Sarandon, Keith David.
• Is it sad that the human race is doomed to repeat all the old evils, with slavery in 2144 Korea and the triumph of barbarism in 2321 Hawaii?
• Four of the six stories have a happy ending, not a bad score.

Available on Blu-ray. The subtitles help with the Valleysman lingo of post-apocalyptic Hawaii.