Cloud Atlas: A Modern MAsterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (30 May 2013)

I mean to say that Cloud Atlas is the most complete cinema made in recent history.
My claims may seem far-fetched to some, and I know some of you believe them passionately; but it is undeniable that the movie shook all of us. Cloud Atlas needs a lot from its viewers, most importantly an open mind, to the point where you can just let the movie suffuse your senses, and not try to escape from the confusion that is created by the (amazing) screenplay. It creates some sort of a magic that I can attempt to describe as 2001: A Space Odyssey meets Angel's Egg, or ambition meets spirituality.
The movie is about six stories spread across 1849 to 2321. The first striking feature is how the same actors are used in different stories, sometimes they are unrecognizable (yes, some make-up jobs are bad too, but most of them are excellent, 'Oscar-worthy-by-miles'). The next, would be the divine editing, I have not seen anything of this magnitude ever being pulled off so magnificently. The six stories are served in one complete story, the transitions are breathtaking. The screenplay is immaculate, I doubt David Mitchell would have any complaints against the crew. The dialogues are beyond genius, weaving the stories into one seamless idea, and helping the audience to grasp the significance of what's going on. The background score is one of the most soothing and mellow tune I have come across, the Cloud Atlas Sextet is an achievement in itself. Hugo Weaving, Jim Broadbent, Ben Whishaw, Hugh Grant, Halle Berry, Doona Bae, James D'Arcy and, above all Tom Hanks put up their best performances ever for this movie. I mean just sit back and think about what it would cost any actor to mentally prepare himself/herself to play a journalist one afternoon and an advanced being on post- apocalyptic Earth the next day. The directors, well let's talk about that.
The whole movie is like a puzzle that won't solve easily. It's natural to miss a few details, hence it has to be watched a few times to fully grasp it. For its entire duration, Cloud Atlas is less a movie and more a live, breathing, persistent idea that seeks to invade your mind. It is so much like story-telling should be, moving at its own pace, in a rhythm that seems to be pre-determined and not manually manufactured. While most directors struggle with a single story, the Wachowskis and Tom Twyker handle six cross-genre tales with aplomb and finesse, both. A period drama, a romance, a crime thriller, a comedy, a sci-fi and a post-apocalyptic tale is blended with a smoothness you simply cannot expect. Yes, for the first 30 minutes, things will go through the roof, but once you reach that state I talked about earlier, you are in for something epic. It is sort of disarming how none of the physical happenings are given more than a passing glance, like you may feel that the Sextet or Cavendish's story or Ol' Georgie could have done with some more attention/explanation but that is exactly the way the directors wanted it, to emphasize that it is not the individual instances but the collective impact that matters. Now let's move on to the most complex part, the idea.
The themes that this masterpiece explores are many, re-incarnation and the evolution of souls being the most evident. It tries to establish how one act of kindness can ripple through time and affect events of the distant future. It tries to talk about the universal cycle, of creation and destruction, and also of the cosmic connections that exist between souls. A very surprising and not easily observable theme that is also explored is how facts turn into virtual history with time, and creates chain reaction, changing minds and altering futures. Frobisher gets inspired by Ewing's journal to complete the sextet, Luisa reads Frobisher's letters to know his story, Cavendish is actually going through a manuscript of Luisa's adventures, Sonmi-451 knows about Cavendish's ordeal through a movie and the Valleysmen worship Sonmi, whose scriptures originate from a video of Sonmi-451's last speech. Any movie that has handled such complex themes is stupendous, and to do it with only very minor glitches is more so.
There are a lot of magic moments in the three hours that you get to enjoy Cloud Atlas, my most favorite being when Luisa (while reading Frobisher's letters to Sixsmith) meets the clerk (played by Whishaw, who enacted Frobisher) who's listening to Frobisher's sextet.Another one is when D'Arcy's dialogue in 2144, "The world has a natural order", is shown to have been repeated by Weaving in 1849 with a very similar context. The people are hopelessly connected via their souls as Hanks gets intrigued by Halle Berry in most stories, and Doona Bae and Jim Sturgess are couples/lovers in some, and Keith David by and large has some warmth for Berry across time. It is really a very very expansive movie.
In short, I feel that Cloud Atlas deserves much more than what it has got so far, but that is the usual treatment most landmark movies get. As time goes by, and people develop the necessary faculties to fully appreciate the idea, this will be exalted to a 'cult' status. It will be a celebrated piece of movie in the near future, and I sure as hell hope this movie gives a boost to the acceptance of such movies. It is one of those rare movies that can alter the way you think, it makes you want to sit with yourself and question the amorous doctrines we so cling to. In this age of imminent darkness, Cloud Atlas is a movie that gives lessons in systemic thinking, or how to forego personal biases for the greater good, and how that one single choice of yours has the ability to positively affect many more lives in the distant future.