Cloud Atlas Blew My Mind In a Very Profound Way

Rating: 10/10 (5 May 2013)

This is my first review and it seems appropriate that Cloud Atlas would be the subject. I've heard it is much more fun to write good reviews than bad and Cloud Atlas was the best movie of 2012 and probably one of the best in the last ten. No other movie this year or any I can think of has affected me like Cloud Atlas. Even now, almost a week after seeing it, Cloud Atlas is still with me. I don't just mean that I have thought about it every now and again; but that I have never stopped thinking about it's beauty, emotion and often sheer amounts of kick-ass spectacle. It's characters are so well thought out and well performed that they feel like real people. Cloud Atlas was adapted (from the David Mitchell novel of the same name) and directed by three of today's greatest auteurs, Tom Tykwer and Andy & Lana Wachowski. With six connected stories told in six wildly different locations and time periods, this behemoth of a film needed each one to work as well as it does. As much as I love Run Lola Run and The Matrix, which is a lot by the way, Cloud Atlas is far and away the best thing any of the three have accomplished. Cloud Atlas shows "how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future and shows an act of kindness ripple across centuries to inspire a revolution." It does this through six seemingly unrelated stories with the cast of actors playing roles in each. The stories range from 1849 in the South Pacific, to a Post- Apocalyptic earth 106 winters "After the Fall". I won't go in depth with each story as we would be here all day and I wouldn't want to spoil any of the challenge. The cast is phenomenal and they'd have to be in order to pull this off. Each actor appears in each story, often in heavy amounts of make-up and sporting accents. The make-up work is always incredible, though it doesn't always work with the particular actor (such as Korean actress Doona Bae as a 19th Century white woman). But the actors are only on screen as their more bizarre transformations for a limited amount of time. Many of the performances, however, are simply brilliant. Every actor is incredible in many of their roles. Halle Berry is wonderful as 1970's reporter Louisa Rey, Tom Hanks as the post-apocalyptic villager Zachry is excellent, and Jim Sturgess' portrayal of 22nd Century Korean freedom-fighter is a stand-out. The best performances are given by Jim Broadbent and Ben Whishaw and both men are serious Oscar contenders. Jim Broadbent is phenomenal as composer Vyvyan Ayrs in the 1930's sequence and as TImothy Cavendish in the present day sequence. Both performances are completely different and he nails every line. If he doesn't earn an Oscar nod for his work, there is no justice. Ben Whishaw as Robert Frobisher there aren't enough words to describe how amazing he is as the amanuensis (fancy word for assistant composer) to Broadbent's Ayres. Frobisher composes the Cloud Atlas Sextet the driving piece of music that connects the stories. The story of Robert Frobisher and his lover Rufus Sixmith (played by James D'Arcy) is the most emotional and affecting of the six. It is beautifully directed by Tykwer and even though Whishaw and D'Arcy aren't on screen together often, the tragic love story is wonderful. Cloud Atlas would not work nearly as well as it does if it weren't for the impeccable and often jaw-dropping editing done by Alexander Berner. In an interview The Wachowskis and Tykwer they said that while writing the script they planned the exact moments when a transition between time periods would occur. That doesn't make Berner's work any less flawless. One character could be turning a corner in one time period when the film would show another character walk through a door in another. Some critics have called Cloud Atlas overly complicated and hard to follow. I would have to call these people old, or at least slightly lazy. I honestly had no trouble following the narrative. That isn't to say I didn't have to work for it; because, I did. Assuredly, not everyone will react to this film as positively as I have. I saw it with my brother and there were probably 25-30 other people in the theater. We were the youngest people there by at least ten years. When the final credits rolled, I applauded which I do not do very often but my brother and I were the only ones. I'm not saying this was obviously a case of "they were too old, so they didn't get it"; just that you should go in with an open mind. If this review seemed a little sappy at points or that the movie is pretentious I apologize, but that is how emotional and excellent Cloud Atlas is. I simply can not recommend this incredible film enough. This was the best film of 2012 and rests comfortably on the top of my Best of 2012 list.
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