Cloud Atlas: A Symphony of Sight and Sound

The last few weeks have seemed like I've been focusing on nothing but Cloud Atlas, which is partly right. There have been other things going on in my life other than David Mitchell's novel and the Wachowski siblings/Tom Tykwer's adaptation. And even though I will ease up on the gushing a bit after this review, these two wonderful works of art will continue to occupy some head space.

I've already written a very long sentence describing the plot in my book review a few days ago, so I'm not sure I'm up to writing it all over again. Will it seem crass to ask my readers to scroll down a bit to another post to read that long plot description? Well, I don't know about crass, but it's certainly lazy, so I guess I should at least quote myself below:

Just to give a brief rundown of what the book contains, the novel starts with the diary of Adam Ewing, a man who has gained passage on a schooner called Prophetess; then the story moves to a series of letters written by Robert Frobisher to a lover, Rufus Sixsmith; from there the story jumps to a journalist in the American seventies, who uncovers corporate greed and a murderous plot; and then the reader is blasted to the near present for the funniest section of the novel, where a poor elderly editor goes through a most ghastly ordeal; over a hundred years later, a fabricant named Somni-451 starts describes ascension into consciousness; and finally, we are propelled even further into a post-apocalyptic future as the remnants of humanity fight for survival and try to connect to their own distant past.

Hopefully, dear reader, you'll forgive my laziness. The film doesn't alter much of the basic plot of the novel, but it does change many of the details, which I found refreshing since I just finished the novel and didn't want an exact replica of the novel. What I did find with the film is a symphonic adaptation of the novel, almost like they took Robert Frobisher's symphony and set images to the melody.

From the first few minutes, the Wachowski siblings and Tom Tykwer set the overall tone and pace of the film. They provide a kind of prologue that gives the audience a chance to get used to the style of the film and as a way to introduce all the main characters and the times in which they live.

This is a brilliant move on the filmmakers part. It's like they realize that an audience will have trouble keeping up with all the individual stories unless they've all read the book, so the filmmakers try to give the audience all the stories at once, cutting rapidly from one story to the another and back again. While this sounds like it could be a disaster, and it very well could have been, the film succeeds beyond expectations.

It's success centers on the editing together of all six stories. Rather than making the same choice as Mitchell, who focused on one story at a time, giving the reader the first half of each story and then giving them the second, the directors decide to cut the stories together to provide the greatest emotional effect, so that when a character succeeds or fails in their endeavors, all of them fail or succeed.

I'm not sure if that last sentence makes sense. As I mentioned in the title, the film is a symphony. The individual parts may not sound like much separately, but when they are put together, they create an experience that is quite powerful. This is especially evident in the directors' choice in casting many of the same actors for all six stories. Take for instance, Doona Bae (whose main character is Sonmi-451). She's pretty recognizable in all of her parts, and so it's easy to pick her out. There's a moment in the film when two of Hugo Weaving's characters threaten and intimidate Doona Bae's. The director's focus on the Bae characters' reactions heightens the emotions of both characters. And they do this with all of the characters, creating a symphony of human emotion that echoes and reverberates in the mind long after the film is finished, much like how I feel whenever I watch a good Shakespearean play, where the language lingers on afterwards in a spectacular kind of afterglow.

The only negative I found in the film was the varying skill of the makeup effects. Some the work was phenomenal. I dare each of you not to be surprised in missing at least a few of famous actors who make appearances. However, some of the work was not at all great, most notably for one of Hugh Grant's characters and one of Doona Bae's. Thankfully, neither is on screen for long enough for the errors to become too glaring. After all, another minute later, the story will move on and the horrible makeup will be soon forgotten.

But this is nitpicking. After all, with the exceptional work throughout the rest of the film, I'm surprised there aren't more horrible makeup jobs. It took awhile for me to recognize Jim Broadbent in the Adam Ewing section.

The book is phenomenal in its style and its propelling narrative. The film works as an accompaniment to the novel, expanding on the themes, translating the novel for a visual and auditory experience. One focuses on language, while the other focuses on sight and sound. This film shouldn't be seen with a mind trapped in trying to figure out the plots and how everything connects. Instead, like with a good symphonic recording, you should just sit back and allow the sights and sounds overwhelm you, allow the film to take you on a journey through time. Cloud Atlas is an experience, and even though it seems like the film doesn't take enough time for me to develop connections to individual characters, I found myself caring for all of them. And that's quite a trick to pull off.