Hawked Spirituality

Rating: 8/10 (12 November 2012)

Reviewed by Mitchell Rhodes Non-Spoiler, Spoiler Alert Cloud Atlas makes spoiler alerts redundant. There is nothing that I, or anyone else for that matter, can write to spoil the plot. Does God or karmic flow have a plot? You don't watch Cloud Atlas, as much as you witness it. So the more you assume the role of a non-judgmental god or perhaps karmic flow itself, the better this film will play. Getting quickly to a place where temporal composition holds little meaning and where and all phenomena can be view as one thing, the better.
It may take ten, or so, minutes to adjust to the unusual structure, genres changes and spiritual dialectic of the film. At least it did for me. There are quick edits between six different story lines, each with it's own genre that occur in different timelines. The genres and timelines line up like this: historical narrative (1849), romance (1936), mystery/action (1973), comedy (2012), sci-fi thriller (2144) and post-apocalyptic (2321-2346).
If that doesn't cause sufficient confusion, then having the same actors play different characters in each of the story/time lines, while representing the same reincarnated 'soul' character or karmic flow, just might.
Once you've settled into the role of universal witness, the film's other elements will emerge with greater efficacy. And there is a $h*t load of them to try and follow. It's as if the writer and then directors took everything that holds some meaning and controversy and jammed it into the film. Does this make the film too ambitious? As god-witnesses, no, as human beings, sitting in a theatre munching on popcorn and sipping sugary drinks, perhaps.
Admittedly there are at least a dozen ways to slice this film into themed categories. If forced to do so, I'd unpack the film this way: spiritual/philosophical, contemporary, reflective. And yet, no matter which way the film is broadly analyzed there is a plethora of specific elements that emerge. And with only one screening under my belt, I'm confident I've missed most of them. No doubt there are many others waiting to be discovered upon subsequent screenings.
Spiritual/Philosophical Elements Concepts from the "Tibetan Book of the Living and Dying" play strong throughout this film. The character, Somni-451, says, "As one door closes another one opens." This is true not only in life, but also in death. If you don't recognize certain truths as an opportunity for change and progress you are relegated to repeat the same mistakes (as certain 'soul' characters do over and over).
If Universalism exists at all, it exists within the context of love and justice. This axiom runs as an undercurrent throughout the film.
Allain Badou, the French contemporary philosopher, puts forth the idea of an Event—a breakthrough or rupture in the phenomenal realm. Events that are strong enough in both cause and effect sow the seeds for revolution. We witness such an Event in the Korean story/time line set in 2144.
"Your life is not your own, your life belongs to others." This line from the film puts forward the Lacanian psychoanalytic concept of the big Other and the role that language has in creating the symbolic order. In the story/time line set far in the future—language has transformed into some hybrid. It's difficult for English speaking viewers to fully understand the dialogue in this sequence. And that's the point here—to reveal and experience the role that linguistics plays on our relationship to the symbolic order. Especially in our understanding of how it's only possible to develop meaning in relationship with others.
The words of American theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, might be used to sum up the entire spiritual/philosophical elements of the film: "Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone, therefore we are saved by love." Amen.
Contemporary Elements Issues such as ethics, the stranglehold that Big Oil has on society, the consequences of greed and consumerism in the context of unfettered capitalism and the dangers associated with cloning and by extension GMO foods will be easily recognizable, in the film, by anyone who pays even the slightest bit of attention to current events.
In the 1973 the story/time line, we discover that a nuclear disaster was covertly perpetrated by the oil industry. Done so in order to create fear, toward nuclear power, among the citizens of the world and keep them committed and dependent on fossil fuels for meeting their energy needs. Might this be a not-so-hidden reference to Fukushima? Reflective Elements Cloud Atlas engulfs us in benefits of spirituality while explicitly presenting the dangers of our capitalistic dogma—presenting quite clearly what might unfold, in the future, by holding such values. And yet, each of us paid over $12 to see the film while the studio, producers, writer, and directors all desire for the film to make tens, if of not hundreds, of millions of dollars in profit.
On a Meta level, what message do we inherently take up from this? Capitalism's pervasiveness and its resiliency to bring everything into its fold—spirituality, revolution, war, peace, hate, love? After all, there are profits to be made in each one of those things.