"Cloud Atlas" :Love As A Continuum Through Time

Cinema is a medium like no other. Sensorial, dream-like, moving vision of imagination, fiction and superlative forms of replicating life. Films have and will explore all areas of the human experience, and those that come from our wildest thoughts and fictional universes. In itself, the art form is already ambitious. It speaks to the most instantaneous of experiences, what we see and hear in the moment, which tells us a story, or evokes a feeling we have lived. Its mass appeal makes it popular, and yet full of possibilities to become something more than just visual accompaniment to pop corn. Some films have very specific purposes: to make us laugh, to ignite romance, or sadness. On the other hand, some attempt to decipher existence itself, to explore the meaning of human life, and most of the times they reach for more that they can assimilate. In recent memory the best example of a movie with aspirations of divine magnitude is Malick's "The Tree of Life", which is a masterpiece but a very difficult piece to watch. There is this esoteric mood throughout the film, that somehow binds together the small human narrative with the creation of life unfolding on screen.

Now, think of a narrative with this same hopes for greatness, but throw in metaphysical complications, love stories expanding centuries, numerous characters, and subplots galore. This is in a nutshell what the new film from the Wachowski siblings and Tom Tykwer tries to show us. "Cloud Atlas" based on the novel by the same name by David Mitchell, is indeed perhaps one of the most ambitious films ever made, and just for that deserves some praise. It brings to the screen a narrative so broken into different time periods from the 18th century to the present to a hundred years from now. Its message, a revelation of a sort of "butterfly effect" theory in which all good and evil, love and hatred we commit in our lives will ripple forever after. The way of connecting the stories is reminiscent of "The Hours" in which a character writes a book, another reads it, and a third one lives it, all in different time periods. However, "Cloud Atlas" is even more complicated in its interior mechanics, and thus is fails to be as cohesive as the example I mentioned. Extremely comedic at times, touching in crucial moments, and mind-blowing throughout. Some stories feel stronger than others, so it ends up being a collection of good choices and some missteps. Nothing is definitive, maybe due to the multiple  directorial approaches, sort of like a "Paris, Je T'aime/ New York I Love You"  in its fragmentation with a point of conjunction, in the case of "Atlas" love instead of a city.

In the film each storyline has its romance and its villain, thess are interchangeable. In a certain time Tom Hanks might play a scheming doctor, and then in a different life he might be an obnoxious writer. This speaks of the variable nature of destiny, and how we are all part of cycles that can be broken, no ones existence is entirely evil nor good. The only unalterable force in the universe is love. Halle Berry plays a feisty journalist who is about to uncover a terrible plot against humanity, then she becomes a futuristic amazon trying to,again, save her people. The most reliable thing in the film is the romance between Hank's and Berry's characters, a constant that drives the plot a little more safely than the rest of the wacky subplots. Other stories are connected by a book written and read in different times, and the letters of a gay love story that inspired a musical piece, which presumably gives title to the film. Another big point the film makes is the importance of freedom, from the devil, from our past, from authority. The best example is the futuristic story of android-like,second-class-slave-clon-waitress Sonmi-451 (Doona Bae) who "works", against her will of course, at a virtual restaurant in the post-apocalyptic Neo Seoul. She is rescued from her captivity by Hae-Joo Chang (Jim Sturgess) who sees her as humanity's only hope for salvation. She is a sort of messiah that will ignite a revolution to free mankind from a consumption-crazy, robotic government. These two will necessarily fall in love, and the story will also travel through time exploring other more known forms of slavery. If you are lost already then watch out, because there is at least another 5 side stories I have not mentioned, and that tangle with the story as a whole.

The stories might not always collide in a logical sense but one thing that the brilliant editing does, is the fact that the stories connect in emotional force. When violence or action happens in one time period it is matched with similar conflict many years apart. Just under 3 hours, the film is a puzzle to be discussed for hours. Like I mentioned, the editing here is just as important as anything else, it drives the film and makes sense of its monumental complexities. A highlight of this, is a brief scene in which the forbidden romance between the runaways in Neo Seoul is consummated in a evocative sex scene; juxtaposed with a no less explosive scene in which the homosexual lovers release their tension by breaking tableware. Very subtle but packed with meaning. Unfortunately, sometimes the film is overly silly, specially in the biggest flaw in it, at least in my eyes. The inclusion of a sort of green, gnome-looking devil in formal attire, who ridiculously tries to persuade one of Hank's characters to do evil. One wonders what where they thinking when that seemed like a good idea, perhaps something more subtle would have worked better as a satanic force. This, and some other overly comedic scenes make it hard to fall into the seriousness of it all. Elderly fugitives, a murdered book critic, or Halle Berry as a white woman, are just a few of the irreverent parts of the script. For all of what it does not so greatly, the film is very entertaining and the almost 180 minutes fly, as we never stop switching from a murderous plot to another. An extremely demanding film in terms of attention to keep up with the turns, but honestly offers some thought provoking views on life, love, freedom, and our connections with one another.

Forget all what you have learned about life and start anew with "Cloud Atlas", if you take it as many interconnected (somehow) vignettes , and take the best parts from each one, you might really find this enjoyable. The style of both the Wachowskis and Tykwer are present. The siblings' taste for the colorful, plastic and futuristic, a mix of their Matrix palette with some Tron/Avatar-inspired visuals. From the German director of cult indie classic "Run Lola Run" we take the intercutting of stories, the repetition of cycles, and the importance of uncommon forms of love like in his most recent film "3". A bonanza of different genres, stylistic visions, and tones , their collaboration is a collage of perhaps the best and worse of life. Now in theaters. Grade B.