November brings cold and dull times as your mind simmers from Halloween parties — that long winter break DePaul students enjoy may seem just out of reach. Watching a movie during these times is always a tangible option: so here’s a movie that might just be worth watching – maybe even more than once.
“Cloud Atlas,” a science fiction and drama film, was written and directed Tom Tykwer, and Lana and Andy Wachowski (who have worked on successful films like The Matrix, and V for Vendetta). This ambitious independent film, which takes the title as one of the most expensive films of its kind, was budgeted at $102 million and has created a lot of buzz among critics after its release Oct 26.
As I was watching this film, which only falls short 15 minutes to being three hours long, I found myself feeling a bit overwhelmed at the start. During a time when our attention spans seem to be at an all-time low, the length of the film was discouraging and I was skeptical that it would feel like a drag. This is not the type of movie that you can watch without really paying attention, it evokes thought and patience, but it’s clear that this film is worth a viewing through its unique structure, thought stimulation, and exquisite visuals.
The official synopsis for “Cloud Atlas” explains that the movie is, “An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution.”
Despite the length, this film tries to keep the audience engaged through six different story lines that seem to be taking place in different worlds.
Without giving away any surprises or twists, the movie is filled with a wide array of topics including: revolution, love, enslavement, homosexuality, deception, greed, conspiracy, murder, consumption, and spirituality.
The stories take place in different eras including the Pacific Ocean around 1849, Edinburgh Scotland in 1936, San Francisco – California in 1975, United Kingdom in 2012, Korea in a futuristic 22nd century, and the last story line seems to be taking place on a beautiful island during a distant post-apocalyptic Earth. The scenery in some story-lines seems almost surreal, and it’s apparent that a lot of the money put toward the film went into the great production of visuals.
The main problem is that even though the movie attempts to keep you engaged by presenting new situations, a change of scenes and plots — you might find yourself getting lost in the chaos. As the film skips from one scene to another and from one story-line to another, you have to pay attention to understand all the twists and connections within the movie.
Legendary film critic Robert Ebert summed up the movie perfectly in the Chicago Sun-Times when he wrote, “To borrow Churchill’s description of Russia, ‘it is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.’ It fascinates in the moment. It’s getting from one moment to the next that is tricky.”
It’s clear that somehow all these stories are connected, and although some connections are more obvious than others, all the stories seem to intertwine in the end. However, even after the movie is over, you may be wondering which connections you missed, which leads the viewer to think they might have to watch this movie again to make sense of it all.
This effect on viewers to re-watch the film for further understanding has likened “Cloud Atlas” to the film Inception, a box office hit that was filmed on a $160 million budget and brought in a domestic total gross of more than $292 million.
Since its release, “Cloud Atlas” ranks second in the box office, falling behind Argo, and brought in about $9 million in the debut.
These numbers have people wondering if the film will be successful or a box office flop. Huffington Post was skeptical of the numbers and published an Oct. 28 article, titled, “‘Cloud Atlas’ Flops While ‘Argo’ Reaches Number One At The Weekend Box Office.” However, one day later, the Chicago Tribune published an article titled, “Don’t call ‘Cloud Atlas’ a box-office flop just yet.” The article claimed that producers aren’t discouraged by the North American box office numbers, and are expecting most of the support of the film to come from foreign box offices after debuts in areas such as Asia and Russia.
