"Cloud Atlas", the film I'm in love with

I loved the book, and was thrilled to see what a bunch of über-gifted scenarists would come up with in a movie... Good Lord, this is high carat gold jewellery... gave me goosebumps... Such richly and finely intertwined characters and plots - even the novel's fans will have missed out on some of the incredibly numerous and subtle connections in the movie... I made a first attempt at watching the movie alone, but ended up giving up on it 'cause I was quite at a loss with all those too subtle (highbrow?) connections... Then I watched that movie again, this time making sure my co-scenarist and my husband (an expert on the novel) were watching too, sitting with me... We interrupted the film on various occasions, listening to my husband's explanations about the book (very helpful to better understand the film) and making conjectures: who was linked to whom etc. As you can see, we spared no effort... However the three of us discovered in the end that we'd all been missing out on some connections - that is: in the end, as we finally get to see all the actors and actresses (well not as many as you might think when you see the film) and the various characters they've been incarnating... So yes: we had to play that final part (film credits within the film) over (and over) again... Actors are playing a whole variety of men and women's parts across the ages, same goes for actresses... Forget about the obvious and clean... 



Our verdict (as self-proclaimed experts on the movie "Cloud Atlas"): splendid casting, splendidly used... In the novel, the connections made between each story tend to be tenuous, suggestive, rather than obvious and clean. In the movie, the connections are made so tenuous and suggestive that... it's no longer a movie. It's premium quality artcraft of some kind...

This film is a unique experience... It feels like a world literature masterpiece that you would be watching instead of reading... Its beauty (some will say philosophy) is complex, not eager to reveal itself to any random person... You've got to deserve it, this will require all your attention and even more than that, but it never shrinks to Parisianism. 

It's art all right. AND it's entertainment for the broader public all right.

Two momentums:

Neo Seoul, (Korea), 2144: "Sonmi-451, a genetically-engineered fabricant (clone) server at a restaurant, is interviewed before her execution. She recounts how she was released from her compliant life of servitude by Commander Hae-Joo Chang, a member of a rebel movement known as "Union". (...). The Union rebels reveal to her that fabricants like her are killed and 'recycled' into food for future fabricants. She decides that the system of society based on slavery and exploitation of fabricants is intolerable, and is brought to Hawaii to make a public broadcast of her story and manifesto. Hae-Joo is killed in a firefight and Sonmi is captured. After telling her story and its intent, she is executed." (Wikipedia). But Sonmi will be adored like Jesus Christ and thanks to her, slavery of clones and machines will finally be abolished just the way things have worked for "American Negroes" in the past... (Pic.)

San Francisco, California, 1973: "Journalist Luisa Rey meets (...) Sixsmith, (...) a nuclear physicist. Sixsmith tips off Rey to a conspiracy regarding the safety of a new nuclear reactor run by Lloyd Hooks, but is assassinated by Hooks' hitman Bill Smoke before he can give her a report that proves it. (...). Isaac Sachs, another scientist at the power plant passes her a copy of Sixsmith's report. However, Smoke assassinates Sachs and also runs Rey's car off a bridge. With help from the plant's head of security, Joe Napier, she evades another attempt against her life which results in Smoke's death, and exposes the plot to use a nuclear accident for the benefit of oil companies." (Wikipedia). Pic.