Cloud Atlas: The Best Film of 2012

The ceremony commemorating the best achievements cinema had to offer last year has come and gone. Awards aren’t everything, but it seems to me a grave injustice has occurred in not recognizing what I believe to be the greatest achievement in cinema of last year. I am referring to the globetrotting, decade spanning six story-lined epic from The Wachowski’s and Tom Tykwer; Cloud Atlas.

Based on David Mitchell’s 2004 novel, Cloud Atlas follows six different self-contained storylines that span from the years 1849 to 2321. These storylines, while self-contained in style and substance, are all connected in the message they convey and the actors within them.

I will try not to go into the movie too much here as I don’t wish to ruin the movie for those that haven’t seen this and I don’t want to turn this into a thesis.

Here are brief synopses of each storyline.

THE PACIFIC JOURNAL OF ADAM EWING (1849):

Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgess), a lawyer enmeshed in the slave trade, begins an uneasy friendship with a runaway slave named Autua (David Gyasi) hiding out in his cabin during a voyage from the Pacific Islands to San Francisco.

LETTERS FROM ZEDELGHEM (1936):

Robert Frobisher (Ben Whishaw), a gifted musician, takes up an apprenticeship with a famed composer (Jim Broadbent) and writes letters regarding his triumphs and humiliations to his lover Rufus Sixsmith (James D’Arcy).

HALF-LIVES: THE FIRST LUISA REY MYSTERY (1973):

Investigative Reporter Luisa Rey (Halle Berry) stumbles onto a conspiracy being perpetrated by an oil company.

THE GHASTLY ORDEAL OF TIMOTHY CAVENDISH (2012):

Beleaguered publisher Timothy Cavendish (Jim Broadbent), on the run from mobsters, is tricked into committing himself into a nursing home run by a no-nonsense nurse. He and a few fellow inmates plan their escape.

AN ORISON OF SONMI-451 (2144):

An android (Doona Bae) is taken from her life of servitude by resistance fighter Hae-Joo Chang (Jim Sturgess) and discovers the truth about her existence.

SLOOSHA’S CROSSIN’ AN’ EV’RYTHIN’ AFTER (2321)

A goat herder named Zachry (Tom Hanks) is asked by an outsider (Halle Berry) to guide her up a mountain peak in order to send out a distress call.

From looking at these brief plot outlines, the six stories that come up against each other in this film couldn’t be more different. They were designed that way as well. In the novel, each story is written in a different prose-style and divided into two parts; the first of which are structured against each other in ascending order (starting from 1849-2321) then the finale to each stemming in descending order. Our bridge into these stories is also through the protagonist’s exposure to it in one story to the next. For instance, The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing story in the book is revealed to be the journal that Robert Frobisher reads in the next story; the letters Frobisher writes to his lover is read by Luisa Rey in her story, and so on (these elements are present in the movie but don’t necessarily serve as our window into the other). It shows how the past experiences of people can affect those of the future and that we are all connected in some way or another.

How do you make a movie out of something like that? Well, if you had asked David Mitchell this very question immediately following the release of his book, he would have said you couldn’t. No one would have doubted him at the time, either? Just how do you make a period piece about slavery, a drama about a bisexual composer, a mystery involving corporate intrigue, a comedy of errors, a futuristic action thriller, and a post-apocalyptic love story into one film?

 

The filmmakers, Andy & Lana Wachowski (The Matrix) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) have crafted not just a surprisingly lucid cinematic structure from this foundation, but one that I couldn’t see working otherwise on film. Instead of following the story one-by-one in the manner that the book does (which is the only way I could see that working in that form), the movie unfolds with the six stories following each other on a scene by scene basis, using very distinct story beats as a jumping off point from one timeline to the next in such a way that tension is held and our interest never wanes. The beginning of the film has each story’s set-up following the other in chronological order by year, then branches off from there by showing each story unfold as necessary for the cohesive flow of the film and what needs to happen for the emotional beats to shine through. This tactic would not have worked if any of the stories had not worked as a stand-alone piece; but amazingly, each one is just as good as the others. It is like watching six sub half-hour movies simultaneously.

 

The way the film is cast was excellent as well. The characters that populate each story are played by the entirety of the principal cast. This means that there is not one actor given top billing who only plays one role in this movie. You will see Tom Hanks as a scraggly haired doctor of the past in one minute, then as a future-speaking goat herder the next. Some of the acting choices also extend to certain actors playing other genders and other ethnicities; like Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith from The Matrix films) playing a nurse in one storyline and then a Korean businessman of the future.  Speaking of Hugo Weaving in this movie, you just haven’t lived until you’ve seen him play a female nurse.

The aspect of the film where actors are given make-up to have the appearance of Asian descent has been labeled by some an egregious example of “yellow facing.” I disagree with this and believe it is another example of the film’s attempts to perhaps express how people’s souls live on through generations and either change or don’t. In the context of the 2144 storyline, it shows how racial mixing can get to such a point in the future where ethnicities are ultimately blurred. Also, the Asian actors in the movie play white characters, Black actors play white and Asian characters (Halle Berry shows up in one story briefly as an elderly Korean man), and so on that it makes any such argument without merit.

Cloud Atlas represents something of an outlier in the scheme of how big-budget movies are financed. After a tumultuous pre-production, the filmmakers secured enough money from independent sources to get the film made. The film’s failure at the domestic box-office (making $27 million against a reported $102 million budget) may not be so poisonous after all considering the $100 million plus it made in foreign markets. It is a very interesting route to take for filmmakers otherwise cemented from a professional standpoint, but it makes sense given that this isn’t a film that anyone would be allowed to make with creative freedom the filmmakers ultimately made the film with if gone through the Hollywood studio system. While the Warner Brothers logo may be the first image you see once the movie starts, it was only distributed through that company, not produced under any studio.

 

Critical reception was mixed, with some praising it and others claiming it to be an unwieldy mess. This comes with the territory, I supposed, as it is a movie that is hard to figure out upon first glance and requires those who watch it to keep all their attentions on what is happening on screen. Everyone is entitled to opinion, especially regarding the merits of a movie, but even if you end up not liking the movie there is enough here to justify its existence in my opinion. It is an experience unlike any other if you are willing to give it the time of day.

As you may have guessed by now, I love this movie. The first time seeing this movie in the theater was one of the best movie-going experiences of my life purely because of the movie itself and not based on any external factors. To quote a rather boorish character from an episode of Seinfeld; “I was enchanted.” I could go on and on about how great this movie is, but I feel I should stop myself because that would be giving away too much from people who have not yet witnessed it. It is a movie that deserves to be seen, and it is a shame it did not get recognized as such. This aspect, however, may prove fitting to the movie’s central theme. The central theme being that those who enact change in themselves and society at large may suffer more than anyone else, but that change is the worth the risk and will eventually transcend the trappings of our terminable lives. I hope this movie will transcend beyond the somewhat lukewarm reception it received upon initial release and eventually be viewed as what it is; a masterpiece. In my opinion, it is by far the best movie of 2012.

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