Cloud Atlas
The Film, The Book, and More
The enigma, the strangeness, the confusion. What is this film? Sci-fi, drama, cops, big man vs little person, comedy, family dynamics exposed. All that is so much to take in from just one film. David Mitchell the author of the book combined all these elements into high-grade pyrotechnics that satisfied me when I read the book the first time and the second time. All these elements were combined by the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer who together created this long-form film.
I like this film a lot. I enjoyed it in the theater and have owned the DVD and watched it several more times since it was first released in the theater. So maybe I’m biased, but the point here is not a review, it’s an explanation of an idea. Good and evil are in constant exchange and as individuals, we can change and grow over time. A more romantic notion is that our souls exist through time. As Roger Ebert wrote, “ It is that good. It is so good that I can tell you everything about this movie, and I will still have told you nothing.”
The film version that I will mostly talk about here is a work to get accustomed to and to be able to follow, It is not so much a problem with the book itself. The visual nature of the film makes following along more effort as not as much can be explained through just visuals.
Watching the film viewers are not given enough of an explanation unfortunately about the meaning of a birthmark. David Mitchell, the author, explains this as the birthmark denotes the main character in all six story parts. As Mitchell states the title is the key. In his words, “The title itself “Cloud Atlas,” the cloud refers to the ever-changing manifestations of the Atlas, which is the fixed human nature which is always thus and ever shall be. So the book’s theme is predacity, the way individuals prey on individuals, groups on groups, nations on nations, tribes on tribes.”
So what about the reincarnation angle? In theologies of reincarnation as individual souls, we can grow and change over time. Also, through time we will meet the same individual souls but in different forms. Further, those individuals will hold different roles in our soul’s path during each particular reincarnation. You may have been in the same city this turn as acquaintances, next you may be business partners, and enemies in battle the next. Or you could be lovers in one lifetime, then coworkers or someone you know from school the next lifetime. Roles change in each incarnation.
Mitchell uses this idea to expose how through time there are predators and prey in our human system. Looking at the behavior of individuals through the film there are always those who are trying to uplift and those who are trying to suppress, control and dominate. We cannot really escape that fact of life scenario.
The Wakovski’s get the idea of the book wrong which may explain why the film version is very confusing for any who view it just once. It is not the individual characters played by Tom Hanks or Haley Berry that are united, it is the one with the birthmark that is the central theme of each of the six stories. Some critics further claim that Tom Hanks character going from murderer to thief to conscientious scientist to murderer to the savior of his tribe is not a straight line in character development. Well, it is not. Life is not a straight line of growth or decay. Nor is history.
In eastern theologies, history is cyclical in nature. There is not a straight line of development or decay. This is on full display in Osamu Tezuka’s work Buddha. In the West, it is hoped that all of history is moving to a culmination and endpoint in history. At least many hope. Whether history is cyclical or linear is too big an idea to solve here.
Maybe just reflect on your own life and see if there is always constant and direct progress or do you see the same themes in different forms recurring throughout your own life. It would be superficial to look just at your progress in your career or your growth or lack of Medium followers. Look at the themes within those larger strides. That is something you would have to answer yourself, and for yourself of course.
Back to the film.
Looking at Tom Hanks characters throughout the film. As he moves from thief and murderer to finally savior and an old grandfather yibberin’ to his grandchildren. As an elder statesman for the community. Is all so transformational. But the theme of the book and this is missed by the film is that predacity is constant, and goodness is constant too. We need to fight the predacity, and always, always celebrate the good. Could Atlas is a film that shows these are themes that are constant and everlasting in human history to date, and may well be into the far, far future.
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