Long Tail Eight 2013: #2

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Long Tail Eight copy

Cloud Atlas

Media type: Film

Directors: Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski

Major actors: Bae Doona, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, James D’Arcy, Keith David, Hugh Grant, David Gyasi, Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon, Jim Sturgess, Hugo Weaving, Ben Whishaw, Zhou Xun

Year: 2012

It’s rare for me to think a film is better than the book it’s based on. All too often, when a book is adapted for the big screen, it loses some of the details (at worst, all of the details) that made it such a delight to read. That’s my gripe with the first Harry Potter film – it kept just about everything from the book (much of the dialogue is copied word-for-word), but it left out the logic puzzle that Hermione solves just before Harry makes it to the Philosopher’s Stone, which was my favourite part.

Cloud Atlas wasn’t like that.

To be fair, I didn’t love the book in the first place; I found a number of its characters unengaging, and some of its matryoshka-nested sections were more than a little tedious to read (I’m talking to you, Sloosha’s Crossin’). Nevertheless, it’s a novel stuffed full of clever interlinkages and the throwaway-brilliant ideas that fill the best speculative fiction. (For example, in An Orison of Sonmi~451, set in the 22nd century, the phrase ‘These are the tears of things’ is used as a password; later in the novel Robert Frobisher, in the mid-20th, signs his final letter SUNT LACRIMAE RERUM. Seen that phrase anywhere else recently?)

And then Tom Tykwer and the bombastic Wachowski siblings got hold of Cloud Atlas, and somehow they managed to refashion a complex novel into an equally complex film (and not many of those complexities are shared) without destroying the book’s themes or its charm. Arguably, the key to Cloud–Atlas-the-novel is reincarnation – it’s a novel in six narratives, nested inside each other (see the novel’s Wikipedia page for a better explanation), and five of the six protagonists are incarnations of the same soul, continuing the same struggle to do good across eras and lifetimes. Cloud–Atlas-the-film achieves the same end by having its actors play multiple roles across the six settings. So Ben Whishaw appears as a post-apocalyptic tribesman and a middle-aged British woman as well as portraying Robert Frobisher, the protagonist of the 1930s storyline; Hugh Grant is variously a hotel porter, a retired investment banker and a cannibalistic warrior; and the Korean actress Bae Doona, who is masterful as the clone-slave Sonmi~451, also turns up as the (white) American wife of the protagonist of the 1840s tale and a Mexican immigrant to the US in a brief role opposite Halle Berry. In the context of the film, this works: some of the transformations effected are amazing. But I should stress, this only works in the context of the film; the creators have been rightly criticised for lacking in cultural sensitivity (and indulging in one of the worst kinds of ‘race-blindness’ – using ‘common humanity’ as an excuse to erase people of colour).

The film is held together by a strong ensemble cast (all the major players are listed above) and a delightful soundtrack, but one not-to-be-overlooked joy of Cloud Atlas are its visuals. It’s a beautiful work. The confident direction from Tykwer and the Wachowskis makes the most of gorgeous sets and stunning special effects. A clipper sails across the Pacific, fingers dance across piano keys, an enormous satellite dish emits a brief and elegant pulse of light… nothing in Cloud Atlas is dull, at least to look at.

Most crucially, in the transition from book to film, the most important parts of David Mitchell’s novel – the ramifications of choices, good or bad – aren’t lost. Tom Hanks is the poster boy for this theme; his characters are the six versions of the ‘soul shaped from a killer into a hero’ mentioned in the film’s promotional material. But there are other, subtler touches too, like the fact that stories set in later epochs make references – often small or oblique, but effective nonetheless – to the stories set in earlier times. It reinforces the unity of the narrative, places events in context and makes some characters’ efforts (such as Sonmi’s) seem even more poignant. Cloud Atlas uses reincarnation as a motif, to be sure, but not in a dippy, New-Age way; instead, it reinforces the fact that, of all the things that make up our lifetimes, the things that tend to endure are our actions. For better or for worse.

So perhaps the film doesn’t keep all the little details that I liked about the novel. But it did better; it left behind the beautiful parts of the book that weren’t suited for the big-screen format and replaced them with beautiful things that were. It’s an artistic decision that respects the source text and the adaptation, and I applaud the filmmakers for it. (Of course, all adaptations do this in one way or another; but I feel this is a particularly good example.)

Cloud Atlas: an undeniable visual delight, and the best film I saw in 2013.

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One thought on “Long Tail Eight 2013: #2”

  1. Brunette

    Good summation of filmmakers’ choices between book & movie, Daniel. I particularly liked “…it left behind the beautiful parts of the book that weren’t suited for the big-screen format and replaced them with beautiful things that were.” Hadn’t thought of it that way but you’ve nailed it.

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