“Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others. Past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future” – Sonmi-351, Cloud Atlas.
In Cloud Atlas,
the infinitely ambitious, ingenious sprawling epic made by German director Tom
Tykwer (of Run Lola Run fame) and
Lana and Andy Wachowski (the creators of The
Matrix), characters’ lives that transpire at different places in space and
time are indelibly linked. A film about migratory souls and wayward
civilizations, the movie intertwines not only the different narrative threads
but the characters themselves; everything is connected. All human life is universalized
through a thirst for freedom and a hunger (“Hunger? For what?” asks one of Tom
Hanks’ many characters at some point) “for more.”
To begin to explain the plot(s) of Tykwer and the
Wachowskis’ film would add up to nothing more than an enumeration of names,
places, and times, and although the sheer scope of the film is worth
describing, the complexly woven narrative doesn’t make for neat unpacking. Spanning
a period of just under 500 years, this daring, daunting, dreamlike film is actually
made up of six different, interlaced stories.
Based on David Mitchell’s visionary novel of the same name, Cloud Atlas begins in 1849 on a voyage
in the Pacific Islands and ends some 200 years into our future, in a
post-apocalyptic, neo-tribal Hawaii, linking the characters through life,
death, triumph, defeat, art, fate, and above all, love.
