Science Fiction

Cloud Atlas

#cloudatlas

I saw Cloud Atlas recently.  Twice.  I have read a bunch of reviews for it, which are pretty middling, describing it as many things. Dodgy prosthetics.  Trite moralising.  Overly long.  Disjointed.  Ambitious failure.  Feel free to chart these out yourself…

I agree that it was ambitious, and I agree that it failed to reach the mainstream, but I was very impressed.  A lot happens in the 2-3 hours of the film, and even more goes on behind the scenes.  The cinematography was lovely, and the music too.  My take: We are witnessing the lives and interactions of a group of souls across several generations.  In addition, certain souls remain typecast in fairly constant roles, whereas other seem to change and develop.  See the table below (from the Wiki):

Actor “The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing” (1849) “Letters from Zedelghem” (1936) “Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery” (1973) “The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish” (2012) “An Orison of Sonmi~451” (2144) “Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After” (2321)
Tom Hanks Dr. Henry Goose Hotel Manager Isaac Sachs Dermot Hoggins Cavendish Look-a-like Actor Zachry
Halle Berry Native Woman Jocasta Ayrs Luisa Rey Indian Party Guest Ovid Meronym
Jim Broadbent Captain Molyneux Vyvyan Ayrs N/A Timothy Cavendish Korean Musician Prescient 2
Hugo Weaving Haskell Moore Tadeusz Kesselring Bill Smoke Nurse Noakes Boardman Mephi Old Georgie
Jim Sturgess Adam Ewing Poor Hotel Guest Megan’s Dad Highlander Hae-Joo Chang Adam / Zachry Brother-in-Law
Doona Bae Tilda Ewing N/A Megan’s Mom, Mexican Woman N/A Sonmi~451, Sonmi~351, Sonmi Prostitute N/A
Ben Whishaw Cabin Boy Robert Frobisher Store Clerk Georgette N/A Tribesman
James D’Arcy N/A Young Rufus Sixsmith Old Rufus Sixsmith Nurse James Archivist N/A
Zhou Xun N/A N/A Talbot / Hotel Manager N/A Yoona~939 Rose
Keith David Kupaka N/A Joe Napier N/A An-kor Apis Prescient
David Gyasi Autua N/A Lester Rey N/A N/A Duophysite
Susan Sarandon Madame Horrox N/A N/A Older Ursula Yosouf Suleiman Abbess
Hugh Grant Rev. Giles Horrox Hotel Heavy Lloyd Hooks Denholme Cavendish Seer Rhee Kona Chief

Hugh Grant and Hugo Weaving play characters bound to order and consistency, the former as some kind of profiteer who works the system to his advantage, the latter as the defender of the status quo.  Weaving’s Nurse Noakes was exquisite! By contrast:

Tom Hanks starts off greedy, then works his way towards happiness at the end.

Halle Berry is questing for truth, becoming increasingly empowered towards the end.

Jim Sturgess starts off struggling to develop a moral backbone, and towards the end is increasingly empowered in defence of his ideals.

Doona Bae starts off as Jim Sturgess’ love, meekly sharing his moral sensibilities, and is elevated to godhood at the end.

There are lots of stories here, and the interactions between them merit exploration too.  I know the prosthetics may be distracting, but they serve to identify the souls by a similarity of appearance.  Alternative devices may have been more subtle, but I suspect would have made the identification nigh impossible for people.

I have a soft spot for the words of Sonmi – very simple but elegant language, food for the soul.  To those who described the meaning as some wishy washy tale of cosmic interconnectedness, I’d say that a shallow man sees his own reflection in the deepest of ponds.

‘Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others. Past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.’ – Sonmi-451

Riders – Part 2

Sam simply stared. She lay on her back, spreadeagled, looking at the stars. Her bed was glowing softly in a blue-white light. The rest of her room had gone, leaving just her, her bed, and the vast starlit blackness. No breeze, sound, or heartbeat served to give any indication of time. In fact, the soundless vacuum denied every attempt to cough or speak.  If Sam had the slightest interest in astronomy she may have noticed, or failed to notice, the missing constellations regularly adorning the night sky on earth. As it was, it all served to heighten the sense of detachment and strangeness of the moment. Her fingers twined uselessly in her sheets as her mind recoiled from the void stretching like a pit before her.  It recalled childhood fantasies of falling upwards into the deep blue sky whilst lying supine on a summer’s day, alone in a grassy field with nothing but dandelions and pebbles for purchase.

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The Anorak

This idea was prompted by a wonderful moment years ago in London, at the corner of a playground in Peckham, where I stumbled across a bunch of the most delicious, succulant and flavoursome blackberries in the universe. It made me think of transient moments of amazing coincidence or beauty, brief cloud configurations, moments of extreme passion or sorrow, basketball hoops scored from amazingly improbable positions and so on. Imagine an individual, or even a group of them, with access to advanced space/time travelling technology (or magic – whatever) that spend their time visiting and cataloguing these incidents, recording them for posterity or maybe some curious ‘Museum of Moments’. Dressed innocuously, possibly with flasks of weak lemon drink, hard-core anoraks waiting for hours in all weather conditions and all terrain for that second or two when the thousand-year bloom finally comes to flower, or the last butterfly of an endangered species lays down to die upon a rock.

Silent observers, we take a peek behind the scenes at their lives, and the ethical dilemmas they might face.

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