Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Movie Review: Cloud Atlas is a very good film for the intelligent mind



Last Friday, I attended the Golden Village press screening of Cloud Atlas, a movie written and directed by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run), Lana and Andy Wachowski (The Matrix Trilogy) and featuring an ensemble cast that includes Tom Hanks and Halle Berry. Watch the trailer above.

Cloud Atlas 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.

Adapted from the 2004 best selling novel of the same name written by David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas consists of six interrelated and interwoven stories that take the viewer from the remote South Pacific in the nineteenth century to a distant, post-apocalyptic future.



Unlike the original novel, the film is structured. When you watch Cloud Atlas, you have to abandon the idea that it is six stories. It is one story! Each of the stories is reflecting on one another as you go through the entire movie. As each story evolves, you start seeing how it all links. Each story propels the next story and so on until it all comes together and feels like they are all one.

Cloud Atlas is not just another film. Its concept is original and brave. Its script is fresh and inventive. Its direction is ambitious. Its editing is flawless. The highlight of the film is definitely its actors. Each actor plays four, five or sometimes up to 6 characters in the movie. Hard to think of any film that has done this at all. And its so much fun trying to spot the actors as they morph into the different characters.

Cloud Atlas opens in Singapore on 17 January 2013. Go watch it! Like the excellent Inception, you may have to watch Cloud Atlas more than once.

"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."

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