Complicated film,
almost at an Inception level. Six parallel stories, spanning five centuries from the past into the future, narrating the interactions of
character pairs (lawyer/slave, music grandmaster/pupil, reporter/nuclear
scientist, writer/lost lover, rebel/robot, tribal native/high-tech futurist), mostly sharing a
birthmark, and all representing different reincarnates of each other -
suggesting how actions/thoughts transcend through generations. The Wachowskis
continue their Matrix and V for Vendetta warnings about an
evil domineering global power, with a touch of Soylent Green (1973). Writing
and editing must've been hell, but not sure whether such a complicated
story-telling style was needed to get the message through.
PS: Almost all major actors (Hanks, Berry, Grant, Broadbent, Weaving, Sturgess, Bae) play up to six roles here, one in each story. Expect an Oscar for Best Make-Up, for the same reason.
Mo says:
I watched cloud atlas last night here's my take on it:
ReplyDeleteFirst of all thanks for your email Mohsen jan I read you article twice, once before watching the movie and once after I watched it.
The fist thing I noticed by watching the movie was that the movie has been directed by different directors It was like I m watching different movies at the same time specially the publisher story.
I felt like the publisher story was not correlated to the other stories and it was an addition to the movie to make it more fun to watch.For example I didn't see the same connection in the neo seoul time and the era after it in the publisher story to other stories. I liked the neO seoul part more than other stories and it was more effective I guess specially the scene when the asian girl faces the reality it had deep impact on me.
the make ups were amazing and I think definitely a deserved candidate for the oscar
In the scene where the composer got killed there was a book under the bed leg I did not understand the significase of that?what was the book?
overall I liked the movie but definitely it wasn't a masterpiece and not the best film of wachowskies
P.S:I dont know why but I really liked to see keanu reeves in this movie
P.S2:I highly recommend listening to the soundtracks
ReplyDeleteYou're very welcome, Reza jaan.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the publisher's story was the most discordant from the other five stories. But maybe that was intentional, because if every story in the movie had exact correlates with story elements in all other stories, we would have thought the stories were contrived and artificial. (You may have noticed what a small part Tom Hanks had in that particular story, playing a villain, while his presence in three other stories were very strong.)
And that could be the reason you felt the movie was made by different directors: maybe the directorial styles were intentionally different, so you wouldn't feel you're getting the same story six times again and again. What's important here is that the essence and concepts of all six stories should be the same, and not necessarily their visual or stylistic elements.
The Neo Seoul episode was my favorite too. Actually, I kept thinking Neo (Keanu Reeves) from "The Matrix" was the main hero (played by Jim Sturgess) in that story! Because he looked and was dressed so much similar to Neo.
Wasn't the book under the bed, the doctor's memoir from the oldest story?