I Know I Know the True True

Rating: 8/10 (7 November 2012)

Movies like this don't come around very often. In the same vein as such movies as The Fountain and Tree of Life, Cloud Atlas explores themes of death, life, and the universe. This is pretty heavy stuff that a lot of people may feel iffy about seeing. However, if you were on the fence, or planning to see it, or planning not to see it, you should go see this movie.
The basic plot is this: There are six different stories the movie follows, each taking place in different points in history (two in the future). The multitude of characters are played only by a handful of actors, in order to portray how we are following the same set of souls through many different lifetimes. The film cuts back and forth between the stories as they make their way to an emotional climax. All of the segments are connected in one way or another, be it through ideas that characters have, music, or the belief in something more.
Some of the segments are a little dull, most notably the one that takes place in the earliest time period about a slave trader who ends up befriending a slave on the ship ride back to the States. For some reason this one just doesn't seem to have the emotional connectedness as the rest of them do. The great stories are the tale of two gay lovers in the 1930s, the story of a Chosen One in the future, and the story of a villager in a post apocalyptic distant future. The other two stories are one of a woman reporter in the 70s and a washed up publisher in the year 2012.
The film is directed by three people, the Wachowskis who directed the Okay Matrix Trilogy and Tom Tykwer who directed Run Lola Run. The Wachowskis directed the story about the slave trader and the two set in the future, while Tykwer directed the stories of the lovers, the reporter, and the publisher. They all come together quite nicely and each time the film cuts back and forth the parallel stories compliment and heighten the meaning of the others.
The acting is fantastic from the main cast. Tom Hanks is best as the role of the tribesman in the far distant future, but also shines as an extremely angry writer in the 2012 storyline and as the sketchy doctor in the slave trader's story. Halle Barry's main role comes as Luisa Rey in the 70s story about a cover-up involving alternate energy. She is also great as one of the last remnants of a highly advanced society in the post apocalyptic story. Jim Broadbent plays the down and out publisher in the 2012 story, but he really shines as the old and cruel composer in the 1930s story who forces his amanuensis to either publish the Cloud Atlas suite under the old composer's name or risk being found out as a homosexual.
Which brings me to the music, composed by director Tykwer, John Klimek, and Reinhold Heil. Instead of trying to come up with something that is catchy and simplistic for the Cloud Atlas music that links the stories together, the piece is a grandiose classical movement, and the rest of the score is as interesting and beautiful.
Despite what you may have heard Cloud Atlas is quite clear cut, assuming that you pay attention. In fact sometimes it becomes a little too heavy handed, and the dialogue is sometimes extremely clunky, but that doesn't distract from the beauty and majesty of the movie too much. My only wish is that they would have spent more time on the two stories set in the future, as these proved to be the most fantastical, exciting, and important. This is a movie that needs to be seen by anyone who enjoys intelligent, heartfelt and mesmerizing art.
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