TGIF!

TGIF!

Thank God It's Friday!

CLOUD ATLAS!

It's out!  The best movie that I saw all of last year is out on DVD n'such this week and I wanted to commemorate it with a extra special post.  For those of you who still haven't seen it, you should for 2 reasons:
1. It's a great film.
2. You can't read this blog post without seeing it.

Seriously, you can't.  If you need further reason to see it, here is the trailer that will give you goosebumps. 

 

So, now are you going to see it?

Well go on then, I'll wait here.  Seriously, don't read any further...

I was hoping to avoid saying it, but...

Spoiler Warning!

Ok, you've seen it.  Good, so for everyone who has seen it, lets begin.

What does it all mean?  With a movie this massive, its not always easy to tie everything together.  Cloud Atlas' particular goal as a movie is to show how everything's tied together, from one person to another, and across time and space.  There is a certain level of vagueness to how they string everything together that one could draw any conclusion that one wished to.  That, I believe, is the strength of the film.  After seeing it once, I developed two possible ways of seeing the film, and upon talking to my girlfriend, I  saw another.  For this TGIF, I wanted to share with you three ways that I see that Cloud Atlas shows that "Everything's connected."

The Atheist View

This view, I must admit, was given to me from an outside influence.  Prior to seeing the movie myself, there were several things I had read and interviews I had seen that talked about this perspective on the movie.  This perspective is that the film portrays life interfered with by any metaphysical influence, and that our actions in life have a ripple effect across the planet that reaches beyond our time.  This logic sees each actor's portrayal of an individual character as being unrelated to any other role they played.  So Hugo Weaving's hitman character has nothing to do with the evil nurse character, and so on.  Watching the movie this way, you see quite plainly how the writings of the hopeful abolitionist inspired a composer, whose love affair led a journalist onto the truth, whose novelization of her work motivated a publisher to make some mistakes, whose film portrayal gave confidence to a clone, whose insight formed a faith that gave solidarity to a fractured people.  Now that I think of it, this version is saying, "The only way to achieve  immortality is to get published."  Now I know I'm over-simplifying the story, and there are many other influences on these events, but this is the basic connectivity of the stories.  What one can take away from this interpretation, as in the following two, is what you do matters.  Beyond ourselves as individuals, what we do, and what we are inside and out, has an effect on everything around us.  So, without the need for any deity, we can see our relationship to the past, present, and future.

This view of the story is quite possibly the simplest, but it is still profound.  While it works, there were other factors at play as I watched the film that made me see the stories in a more complex way.

The Hindu Veiw

I'm good with faces, so following the actor through their many roles wasn't too hard.  As I was watching,  I noticed a pattern within the characters, that I thought, was trying to show me something.  To sum up this view of the story, I have chosen to refer to the Hindu belief in Reincarnation: Specifically, that each individual carries the deeds and misdeeds from their previous lives until they either become aware, and become one with Brahman, or not.  What I saw in the film, was that each character played by a certain actor was a reincarnated form of the previous character that actor played.  The characters themselves have some trait that sets them either on a path to awareness and harmony, or spiraling down to hell.  You may not exactly see what I mean, so I'll give you an example.  I'll use Tom Hanks' characters since the narrative thread is easiest to see.

When we first meet him, he is digging up corpses to steal their teeth.  And later in the same story, he poisons a man to steel his chest of gold.  The Trait that Tom Hank's soul has attached to it is greed.  The end of this life, sees little to no progress.

The next life, he is still hung up on his greed, taking everything the broke composer has left, even his clothes.  We see a little remorse from this life, but not much.

In the next life he is working for a corrupt businessman with very little scruples, but, once he meets the journalist, he starts to come around.  But his chance for redemption is cut short by a bomb on a plane.

In 2012, he has regressed to his greediness in the form of a criminal turned author who kills in cold blood to sell more books.  At this point there is little hope for redemption.

But, in this final life, we see his redemption.  Note the green jewel on his neck.  That's the same kind of stone that he stole in the form of the button when we first saw him, the same color of vest that he stole from the composer, etc... The pivotal point where the cannibal has a knife to his throat and he literally breaks away from it's hold to save himself and another is his moment of release from Samsara, and he has lost his attachment to greed.

I know what you're saying.  "Dan, does it work for other characters?"  Why yes it does.

Hugo Weaving's characters make a beeline descent.  He starts as an upholder of the slave system, then he persecutes the composer, then he becomes a killer, then a cold overbearing nurse, then a callous bureaucrat, and finally, after his soul has become so corrupt and deformed, he had become a demonic spirit of temptation.

Hugh Grant's characters all live off of people.  He goes from living off their slave labor to literally eating them.  

It works for other characters too, but I won't spoil the fun of it.  Try and find what the narrative curve is for other characters.

This was my broad vision of the movie, but even though it's more complex than the first view of it, it still has the same idea at heart: What you do matters.  Who you are inside and out and what you do has an effect on everything around you and far beyond.  

The Soul Mates View

In the third view of Cloud Atlas, we have my girlfriend to thank.  It is more complicated than the first but not as complicated as the second.  This theory also holds to reincarnation, but unlike the Hindu version I saw, this is not about a group of people but only two: The lover in trouble and the one who saves them.  In this vision, you just need to follow the birthmark.

The one with the Birthmark in the story is the the Lover in Peril.  They are the protagonist, and the one in need of rescue.  And in every case, their true love, in various forms, attempts to save them through force, affection, or inspiration.  And the two lovers are not always together romantically in each story, sometimes they can't be together, or don't need to be.  It begins with the young man saving the slave and in turn the slave saving the man.  Then we have the composer needing the love of a man he s forced not to be with.  The story of love goes on from each life, just follow the birthmark.  And in each and every case, they are the same pair of souls, just in different bodies.  In the end, they save each other, and they get to be together.  And, as always: What you do matters.  Who you are inside and out and what you do has an effect on everything around you and far beyond. 

These are not the only ways to see the film.  A infographic breakdown on the themes and archetypes at play in the film has shown a more literary breakdown of the story.  You can also have no particular view of it I suppose, but I think a movie like this makes you think more than others do.

Because the sound of it is so joyous and uplifting, here's the song that played out the trailer.

What you do matters.