Cloud Atlas Review: Time for Love

*audio recording here*

Every November 5^th I start off with the intention of watching V for Vendetta. I’ve seen it maybe a dozen times and it never gets old. Perhaps that’s because the films central message is that ideas can never die. That’s a powerful message for sure. It’s true and harsh and beautiful. But I think I might have found a movie for November 6^th: Cloud Atlas.

I went to the theater last night with my dearest friend Kailey Mo Becker. I hadn’t seen her in almost 9 months and it was so wonderful to see her again. Once the movie started it took me a while to figure out what was going on exactly, in fact it took most of the 2 hours and 50 minutes. There are several main plot lines spanning four hundred years of history, many of them overlapping. But it was fun trying to fit all the shifting pieces of the puzzle around and put them together. This movie definitely requires you to use your brain, and for that I am glad. During the first half I was attempting to find the plot line for each of the stories while trying to figured out how they are all connected through time; and ultimately through love.

The acting was superb. Halle Barry plays several prominent roles as is completely redeemed for that whole Cat Woman thing. Tom Hanks (Castway, Lost in Translation, Larry Crowne) stars in just as many roles and displays a wide array of talents as an actor. Timothy Broadbent (Mulan Rouge, Harry Potter), Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe), Ben Whishaw (Skyfall), and the lovely and powerful Susan Sarandon ( Alien, Avatar, Political Animals) all performed so well in there many roles. It was a wonderful experience to see all these amazing actors play so many uniquely different roles throughout the various plot lines.

It is sort of serendipitous that I had a conversation with my parents the other night about reincarnation. My stance is (was?) that it really doesn’t matter. Past lives, eh, you can make that stuff up. You know how it ended. But if you look at the cyclical nature of things i.e. the water cycle, the carbon cycle, bird and fish migrations, the turning of the seasons –that sort of thing- then yes, I’m pretty sure we, our souls if you will, go through some sort of recycling/reincarnation thing. And that’s cool but there isn’t much I can do with a past life. I’m here now, doing my work, living this life. I have different objectives than I did in a previous life, different cells, different genetics, and different experiences. The only thing that truly matters in being the best person I can be today.

So what I loved what most about Cloud Atlas was this idea that those whom we love and those who we hurt get carried with us throughout our lives. Our circumstances change. The time we live in today is different. The technology advances but the essence, the souls of those we impact, get carried with us through time and space. It’s beautiful really. If not real than profoundly poetic to the point that its message can only aid us in our understanding of how we relate to each other. I’d like to think of the people who I’ve met in my 23 years of (this?) life that as people whom I’ve met before (maybe this is why I say “See you later” instead of “Good-bye”). Maybe my best friends were past lovers. Maybe they were family members who I had a grudge against. Bullies I elementary school were once co-workers or bosses. Friends of today and tomorrow might be my brothers and sisters in some distant future.

“From womb to tomb, our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.” Sonmi-451.
-David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

It’s nice to think that with all the chaos life can bring and all the transformations around us (environmental, political, economic, temporal and special) that there is a tethering –a bond of love -that we carry with us as we live and move and have our being. That no matter what happens after we pass over, if this reincarnation thing is true, if we get recycled and get to experience the joys and sorrows of an earthly existence once again, that we are still bound to one another indefinitely. In love, in pain, through it all, we will find each other time and time again.

This is most profoundly felt when Sonmi-451 (Donna Bea) is being interviewed by the Archivist, played by James D'Arcy (An American Haunting, Master and Commander) towards the end of the film. This is when all these plot lines and all the threads from all the different stories finally come together, Sonmi-451 is asked if she fell in love with Hae-Joo Chang (Jim Stuggess). She says she is still in love with him, would always love him. We are shown their love does not transcend time but flows through it, with it. We see every incarnation of their love through time. It was beautiful and lovely and yes, I cried a little.

So I think the lesson her is be kind to one another. Love one another unconditionally. Freed or enslaved. Love with all the open space a heart can have, which is, as big as whole of time.