Oddly intriguing, and sometimes fascinating, but, ultimately, quite frustrating, CLOUD ATLAS was directed by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run), with Lana - formerly Larry - and Andy Wachowski forming a separate crew. Based upon the novel (that I still have not read) by David Mitchell, it reaches from the hidden mind to the outrĂ© limits, while it explores the chronoplex destinies of individuals - all bearing the same comet-shaped birthmark - via six stories set in different eras. Revealed in fragments, these include a comedic 1970s conspiracy with Tarantinoesque blaxploitation gags, a post-holocaust island of tribal cannibalism and technocratic survivalists, a farce about escapees from a British old folks’ home, and the fate of a 22nd century Korean ‘disposable’ waitress rescued from enslavement.
Cloud Atlas cobbles together vanilla sci-fi thrills with philosophical banalities about how an invisible touch of crimes and kindness lingers, to gain weight affecting unpredictably dark futures, where obedience to corporate emblems on bright soaring towers, has entirely replaced nationalistic enthusiasm for multi-coloured rags up the flagpole of patriotism. Under the dogmatic rules of social Darwinism, cannibalism is the last taboo; and Cloud Atlas deploys, quite repetitively, the dilemma of unethical recycling, as if copied from the infamous final revelations of Soylent Green, and A Boy And His Dog, with a grisly sincerity about that amoral mentality.
Yet it gathers portentous blathering: on spontaneous creative sparks, finding a reliable muse, some bleak introspection or nostalgic reverie, inspiration derived from limitless hope, and quaint little fables about how truth can wreck beliefs. There’s a lot going on here, but the glass is not half full, or half empty; it is cracked and leaking. At its heart is a musical composition, a ‘Cloud Atlas’ symphony, that somehow resonates across/ transcends time periods - from historical to futuristic - that provide multiple/ po-mo roles for the main cast (Jim Broadbent is the best of them in repertory theatre mode), in a quirkily novelistic quantum reality concocted by trippy grey convolutions of imaginative thinking round narrative corners. Can you cog the true-true of it now?
It’s an epic but rambling effort and, this being a Wachowskis opus, the makers cannot resist inserting some gratuitous cyberpunk action scenes (very much like Casshern or Natural City), with a rebel hero on the loose in the spectacular Asian megalopolis. You might love bits of it, but I doubt many viewers will agree on exactly which bits are great and which are not. Perhaps, as befitting its myth of irregularities, Cloud Atlas is most genuinely ‘entertaining’ (in anticipation) before seeing it, then again (overall, in contemplation) after viewing. Such is the indie blockbuster conceit of this ambitiously cross-genre TykWacho formulation that its trick also works a second time round, and will possibly repeat its engrossing, curiously adultescent ADHD, appeal for a third, or fourth play, too. It does not offer enlightenment, but it is an uplifting movie.
The most profound influence upon Cloud Atlas is Terry Gilliam. Although rejecting his oeuvre’s
delightful flights of whimsy, a greater sense of realism in Cloud Atlas is woven tightly around a
core of urgent romanticism that’s very Gilliamesque in tone. Think of his Time Bandits,
