Cloud Atlas, the new movie co-directed by Matrix filmmakers the Wachowski Siblings and Tom “Run, Lola, Run” Tykwer, is a sprawling story about the interconnectedness of humankind. To illustrate how we are linked the directors took the unique tactic of assigning multiple roles to the entire cast, including stars Tom Hanks and Halle Berry.
Hugo Weaving, the Australian actor of Matrix Trilogy Agent Smith fame, for instance, plays everything from a hired-gun assassin to an evil spirit to a female nurse (which he based on Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) and more.
“Most of my characters were agents of control, enforcement or attempting to limit imagination or incarcerate people or stop certain stories from getting out into the world or just plain going out and killing people,” he says, “and then there’s Georgie. He actually doesn’t exist as an embodied figure. He’s literally a devil, so he’s a fear.”
Playing a range of characters spanning centuries and even gender divides didn’t faze the veteran actor.
“I was completely thrilled at embracing the idea of it,” he says. “When they told me the idea originally, ‘We want you to be one character in each storyline and at this stage we’re calling him the antagonist,’ it was a big thrill. If an idea grabs you in the gut, it is something you should definitely do.”
Gut feeling aside, juggling six roles presented challenges during the shoot.
“Right from the go the stories weren’t going to be shot in the same block,” he says. “We would do elements of certain stories in certain locations. If most of a particular story took place on one set of course you would tend to shoot most of that story before moving on to the other,” he says, “but there was one time I had five characters in a week.”
The unusual approach, he says, gives the film “a sense of playfulness that it wouldn’t otherwise have.”
“That’s what was fascinating to me,” he says, “seeing how one story can parallel another one because people are in sort of the same place. Then you get the strong sense of life repeating itself and certain constructs in the world repeating themselves time and time again. Certain power games being repeated time and time again and then you realize this same actor is playing all these characters and having the same attitude toward life.”
Words like audacious and ambitious will be used to describe the sprawling three hour saga from co-directors Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer. Based on a novel by British author David Mitchell, it’s a non-linear epic that connects six characters—make that souls—throughout different times in history. It is audacious and ambitious, and all those other “a” words, but I’d add another word to the mix—baffling.
Careening through history like a time machine with a broken steering wheel, the movie jumps from the Pacific Islands circa 1849 to 1973 San Francisco, to Cambridge and London in the 1930s and present day to Neo Seoul in 2144 to a time known as 106 years after the Big Fall.
The structure seems random at first, but as the running time ticks on connections begin to assert themselves and through lines emerge. Each story has a distinct look and feel—Neo Seoul is futuristic, present day London is pitched almost like Benny Hill meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—but share a common cast. Each actor plays many characters—to stop your mind from wandering you may find yourself playing a Where’s Waldo game, trying to identify the actors in their various guises.
Genders are bent and ethnicity skewed to make the point that each of these people are connected, their souls passed form one time frame to another. It’s as if we’re watching a history (and future) of civilization seen through a handful of people. “Our lives are not our own,” the film tells us, “we are bound to each other from womb to tomb.” In other words these characters are replaying their lives throughout eternity, raising questions of fate versus destiny.
It’s heady stuff, much of it, but while there are loads of ideas on display, only one is hammered home. The idea that we are all connected, while spiritually satisfying, is the most simplistic of the movie’s concepts. We get it in the first hour, it’s reinforced in the second and by the end of the third act you want to scream, “I know! I know! We’re all connected!”
It’s heavy handed concept wise, but there is much to enjoy here. The performances are strong. They have to be to battle with the nonlinear structure that sees these stories seemingly randomly cut and pasted together as the trio of directors slowly connect the story’s dots.
It’s a pleasure to see actors like Tom Hanks, Jim Broadbent and Hugo Weaving push their boundaries. Hanks takes on multiple characters with fake teeth, fake hair and in one case, even a really fake accent.
The action scenes, however, are a let down. Surprisingly for directors who redefined movie action in their “Matrix” trilogy, the anticipated Wachowskis touch is missing in the bigger set pieces.
“Cloud Atlas” is a sincere attempt to bring a difficult novel to the screen, and even though the filmmakers include a scene where a critic is thrown off a balcony to his death, literally exploding in a gory gusher, I have to admire it’s scope, if not it’s execution.
SYNOPSIS: Words like audacious and ambitious will be used to describe the sprawling three hour saga from co-directors Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer. Based on a novel by British author David Mitchell, the story careens through history like a time machine with a broken steering wheel. Jumping from the Pacific Islands circa 1849 to 1973 San Francisco, to Cambridge and London in the 1930s and present day to Neo Seoul in 2144 to a time known as 106 years after the Big Fall it’s a non-linear epic that connects six characters—make that souls—throughout different times in history.
Star Ratings:
Richard: 3 ½ (Interconnected) Stars
Mark: 4 Stars
Richard: Mark, the movie’s structure seems random at first, but as the running time ticks on connections begin to assert themselves and through lines emerge. Each story has a distinct look and feel but share a common cast. Each actor plays many characters—so to stop your mind from wandering you may find yourself playing a Where’s Waldo game, trying to identify the actors in their various guises. Did you find it confusing?
Mark: All part of the game, Richard, all part of the game. And the Wachowskis are nothing if not game players. There are some people who will think this is the best movie of the year. I don’t know about that but it is the MOST movie of the year-eight movies by my count. Usually after I see a film I want to go for coffee- after Cloud Atlas I felt I needed a vacation. But you can’t fault its ambition. What you can question is its spiritual balderdash of We Are All Connected. If so, why won’t Spielberg return my calls?
RC: I hear you, it is a whole lotta movie. I also get what you mean about he idea that we are all connected. While spiritually satisfying, is the most simplistic of the movie’s concepts. We get it in the first hour, it’s reinforced in the second and by the end of the third act you want to scream, “I know! I know! We’re all connected!” What did you think about each actor taking on six roles?
MB: Part of the fun, and an Oscar shoo-in for whoever did the makeup. There is another theme to the movie which I found less trite which is humanity’s pursuit of freedom and free will over the ages. Some of the stories make this point better than others; I was most engrossed in the Seoul 2144 plot and least impressed with the nursing home geezers, although Jim Broadbent was terrific, as always. But I found it kind of depressing to find that in the far, far future, we all talk like Ozark hillbillies.
RC: I liked the nursing home story! But then again Benny Hill always made me laugh. The action scenes, however, let me down. Surprisingly for directors who redefined movie action in their Matrix trilogy, the anticipated Wachowskis touch is missing in the bigger set pieces.
MB: I think if the action scenes were any bigger they might have overwhelmed the rest of the movie. But even if the film had one plot too many and one idea too few, it still made me feel the grandeur of what cinema can be.
Cloud Atlas, the new movie co-directed by Matrix filmmakers the Wachowski Siblings and Tom “Run, Lola, Run” Tykwer, is a sprawling story about the interconnectedness of humankind. To illustrate how we are linked the directors took the unique tactic of assigning multiple roles to the entire cast, including stars Tom Hanks and Halle Berry.
