Marval Movie

There was a continuing feeling that was going through me while watching Cloud Atlas, hope. With the release of more and more daring unique films like The Tree of Life and Samsara this movie gave me hope that movies are not dying, they are only beginning to bloom.

Cloud Atlas tells many tales over many years, in many different life times with characters and situations constantly changing, age, ethnicity and mostly the century that they take place in. The movie constantly cuts to a different story that eventually reveals itself to be a masterful whole in itself.

This is truly a miracle of a movie. The Watchowski's along with Tom Tykwer gathered up the funds they needed for this project all on their own and assembled a cast that I think may be unmatched in the history of the movies. With over one hundred million dollars as their independent budget this makes Cloud Atlas the highest budget independent movie ever and arguably the best looking.

I think that if you come across an ambitious writer or filmmaker and you give them a book and say that its un-filmable then they will say "ow really". The book Cloud Atlas, by author Dave Michell belongs in the pile of books that are considered to be untranslatable into film. Well now here come these visionaries to take that challenge and prove everyone else wrong.

The cast rotates with each story, one has Halle Berry as a reporter in the seventies accompanied by Keith David, Tom Hanks is a tribesman in the future, Jim Browdbent is a publisher in trouble in the modern day, Ben Whishaw is a young composer with much talent and potential. Tom Hanks is the most reoccurring out of all of them, everyone knows Tom Hanks as "the nice guy" well here he not only gets the chance to play some roles that take him in more of a different direction but also some parts that you would have never imagined him in if you would have had a million years to think of it. Have you ever thought of casting Tom Hanks as a crooked doctor? How about a cockney skin head, foul mouthed writer? Didn't think so. The second would be Hugo Weaving, a classic Wachowski choice, playing mostly villains (naturally), there is even one story that he even gets to switch genders. You even get to see Hugh Grant put on an American accent (no its not that good, but at least you can say you've seen it).

The movie works more like a collage than a traditional three act movie. It weaves its stories together and you can look at one point of it and admire that section, or you can take a step back and admire the selesai image that forms when you view them all together.

Clearly the movie is saying that reincarnation is real but what comes with that? Have you ever heard a piece of music, or seen another person in the street and felt that you knew them? Or heard that piece of music before? Our lives are all a part of the great amalgamation of a whole and the whole is made up of the little pieces that are our lives, that may one day spiral towards one great truth, or whole, or just will always lead to the next door in our never ending journey.

During one section with Ben Whishaw as a young composer, he writes a melody that is named Cloud Atlas. The movie itself is like a piece of music with a theme and a chorus and a few repeated notes throughout the movie, one such repeated note is a blue stone that gets passed down through the ages.

The music, ow my the music. Cloud Atlas already has one of my favorite movie scores of all time, it is the music of dreams that you are sure you've heard before but cant seem to remember where from or when. It is a truly magical tune that will stay with me to the end of my days. Right now while I'm typing this review I'm listening to the soundtrack.

There are some Quantum physicists that theorize that all time is happening simultaneously, clearly there's a little of that theory going on here withing the writing, the past is happening right now and so is the future, it is only our perception of the three dimensions that stops us from seeing all of time itself. But still beyond that, reincarnation is more than who we were previously but the people we will become and will meet.

Cloud Atlas is, as the old saying goes "its a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." This films true purpose or message will never fully reveal itself because it will always change and adapt to whenever I or anyone else watches it.

Rating: 4 stars out of 4