Winter Views...

Cloud Atlas - 4 stars ****

On Friday, Mo and I went to watch Cloud Atlas, the latest offering from the Wachowskis (of The Matrix fame) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run). I managed to find a preview of it on at Parrs Wood, as it is not released until this week, so I booked tickets to make sure we definitely got in. I saw the trailer for it way back in summer and have been waiting to see it since, although apart from knowing it is based on a book by David Mitchell I had no idea what it was about!

I'll admit, trying to explain what this is about is going to be tricky, not least because there are so many subplots, and all the characters are at least doubled if not quadroupled up, so even describing things that happen to certain people is difficult! 

The main idea is that people's souls remain the same throughout time and space, yet external factors can influence the way their life turns out. There are six different settings: a slave owner's (Jim Sturgess) ship in a pacific voyage in 1849, a composer (Ben Whishaw) writing love letters in 1930s Britain, a news reporter (Halle Berry) investigating a corrupt nuclear power plant in the 1970s, a publisher (Jim Broadbent) confined to a nursing home in the present day who attempts to run away, a Korean clone (Doona Bae) who escapes from her master (Hugh Grant) and rebels in 2144, and a tribesman (Tom Hanks) fighting cannibals in a post-apocalyptic world in 2300. The film (that is nearly three hours long) flits between all six of these stories, until eventually at the end everything appears to click into place and certain conclusions can be drawn about each 'soul'. 

I cannot even begin to comprehend the skills of the actors who took part in this, as they would have had to have done research on many different characters at once, and gone through time consuming, arduous transformations to become them. This is one of the brilliant things about the movie, as sometimes it takes quite a while before you realise who is playing which character. This gives each one a chance to impact before you see them as the actors they are, for instance, Hugo Weaving or Susan Sarandon. Weaving is especially good in drag as the terrifying Nurse Noakes, preventing Broadbent from escaping the home he has been put in by his rich younger brother (Grant) who is jealous of his affair with his wife Georgette (Whishaw).

One bad point I had with this, which may seem a little petty, is that Old Georgie, the ghoulish creature that haunts Zachry in 2300, was very similar to a Mighty Boosh character, even down to the way he spoke, which made me want to constantly laugh! Also a sort of madeup/ patois style language is used in the same setting, which at times I really struggled to understand.

I think that this film has marmite syndrome; though overall I would say I loved it, I have spoken to many that hated it. I thought it was a truly awe-inspiring piece of work, that seemed to evoke and attach itself to every emotion, from love and jealousy, to fear, delusion, pain, lust, greed, pride and philanthropy. It also had a lot of philosophical stuff in that was a little over my head, but intrigued me all the same.

After watching this, I am really tempted to read the book, as I think a story of this depth and complexity would excel on paper and be much more understandable. All I can say of the film is watch it, and hopefully you will think as highly of it as I do!