An enormous, ambitious film

Rating: 10/10 (4 November 2012)

An outstanding achievement. I haven't read the novel (though I ordered it immediately after coming back from the film), but one can tell from the film that it was a behemoth as far as it came to the film adaptation. It's surprising that any director (or even any three directors) would see it and say, "Yeah, I can do this." Or that any studio would say, "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." Judging by the box office, perhaps Warner Brothers made the wrong decision, but the directors have tackled their endeavor with vigor and produced a monstrous, beautiful, jaw-dropping film. The story covers six different time periods, from the mid-19th Century to who-knows how long after the end of human civilization as we know it. Each tale was at some point written down, and the characters in the next timeline are inspired and influenced by those stories. The novel is told in a sort of Russian nesting doll fashion, where the next story opens in the middle of the previous, and eventually get closed up at the end. The Wachowskis and Tykwer have taken Griffith's Intolerance as a model and have the stories flow in and out of each other. I can't say which one works better, but the film's version works wonderfully. I loved the ways they find links between the stories, themes or images. The best thing is all six of the stories are equally as wonderful, so I was never thinking "When the Hell are we going to get back to the sci-fi story?" or whatever. I was involved with the film from alpha to omega, and never for a second felt like it was too long (or even too short). There's also the gimmick of having the main cast appear throughout each of the stories (which is unique to the film version), often playing different genders and races. Tom Hanks and Halle Berry are arguably the stars and probably have the most roles. South Korean actress Bae Doo-na is most memorable in her role as Sonmi-351, a fabricated human being in the 22nd Century. Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Jim Broadbent, Ben Whishaw, Keith David, Susan Sarandon and Hugh Grant, among others, also play multiple roles. The fact that this worked at all is amazing. That it works so well is a miracle. Definitely one of the best of the year.