MOVIE REVIEW: Cloud Atlas

You’ve got to be in the zone to appreciate, enjoy and really think afterwards about a particular movie: the story, the plot, the language, the themes, philosophies, metaphors, historical relevance, the characters and the seamless way each is interwoven to the entire picture. And these ingredients are what make the film CLOUD ATLAS such a powerful and extraordinary film to watch. A True First.

Do you still think you're exactly the same person you were 5, 10, 15 or 20 years ago? Each time I watch Cloud Atlas I come away feeling how even in one lifetime we change. We evolve. We grow survival skills. Circumstances tests us, a deluge of choices overwhelms us, decisions we make questions our judgement, our ethics and values and how we live by them reveals who we truly are. And when no-one’s watching, when we think we can get away with it – now that’s what transcending in Cloud Atlas is all about. For me, watching a movie is a personal experience; an immersion of a being into someone else’s creative imagination.

credit: cloudatlas.warnerbros.com

Cloud Atlas? You ask again. "I know...I know..." Your friends may never have watched it too. And maybe you missed its premier too. Don’t worry; it is not your fault. But wait...let me take you inside the movie. Guess who were the stars in the film? Try one more time...Would you believe IF I told you that each of the actor/actress acted no less than four different characters in this film? Unbelievable! Meet the actors: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishhaw, James D’Arcy, Zoun Xun, Keith David, David Gyasi, Susan Sarandon and Hugh Grant. Phew! What a list. Now you get the picture.

Tom Hanks plays 6 characters (man from the future, outraged writer, Scientist, Professor, bad doctor...), 3 of which are rather usual. I can bet you £20 you’ve never seen him play these sort of characters before. And I mean EVER! Can you imagine Tom Hanks a villain? Still, you can trust Tom Hanks to play the man with an accent or quirks like he did in Forrest Gump and Lady Man Killers. He delivered all 6 characters he played in Cloud Atlas spectacularly.

With its creative language and dialogue expertly produced by the writer of the same-named book, David Mitchell, uses powerful rhetoric and element of eloquence to write a masterpiece: hyperbaton, anadiplosis and the likes to craft a language to tell his stories, embellishing the characters in this. You hear words like “I’ve got my eyewise on ya...” and you simply double over with laughter. The timeline for this story begins in 1849 through the year 2321.

source: http://www.cinemablend.com

Halle Berry plays 7 characters: a journalist, a Jewish woman who settled for the man society dictates she should marry, the woman from the future, a scientific doctor with a disfigured face, the slave girl from a distant past, a woman at a literary party and the older woman of the future. Rather than saying "that's the fact", Halle Berry tells us to say “True-true” in that soft but richly subtle accent she uses for that role. You’re also going to love the versatile characters Tim Broadband and Hugo Weaving played (who’s actually a Nigerian because he was born in Ibadan [wink!]). 

The actor who took on the most unexpected character and delivered it with gusto beyond imagination was Hugh Grant! He was a cannibal! Unbelievable I tell you. 

Do tell: what was your experience like when you watched Cloud Atlas?

When you watch a movie, what are the themes about it that strikes you?

The movie yarn, a philosophical look of Cloud Atlas continues in part 2...