Barriers and Structure: A Response to Cloud Atlas

This has been percolating in my head since I saw Cloud Atlas last Thursday. After a discussion with a friend was cut short due to my lack of cold tolerance, I’ve been forced to mull over my initial impressions and gut reactions. While I really like it, I’ve been pushed, by the same friend, to think through the mechanics of why I like it. This post is an attempt to do just that.

Warning: For those who don’t want any spoilers, just stop reading here. For those who actually know about the book, I’m probably going to go in weird directions that may be just straight up incorrect. The following are just my thoughts about the movie, the point, and the language to communicate that.

My friend’s first point was that the movie substituted structure for character development. My initial response was “so what?” Now that I have had time to think, I think that not only is this incorrect on multiple levels, it also misses the point. This statement has been the seed for my thoughts, so my responses have crystallized around that comment. I posit that 1) there is character development, 2) in the context of this film, structure can augment character development, and 3) focusing on character development misses the point and statement of the film.

To say that this story lacked character development is to quibble over degree, rather than existence. It seems self-evident that in all of the stories, there is character development. A chance glance and Adam befriended a slave. Faced with opposition, we saw Luisa’s desire to be the reporter her father would have approved of both harden and be realized. Sonmi-451, faced with truth of the world, developed in ways unexpected and unanticipated by her designers. Zachry faced his (very real) demons in his travels to the demesne of the old’uns. Each main character was faced with the choice to break their own boundaries and this decision served as the impetus for personal growth and development. Not all stories were defined by this intense character development -how boring a world is all stories were! This is the base of my last point too; but let’s not get ahead here. There is development of character for the leads. This development occurs in such a way as to convey the film’s main themes of consequence and reaction.

The structure of the film and story is one that most critics and reviewers have found themselves drawn to discuss, for good or ill. I think in many ways, the structure, while opening up some concerns (as I will discuss later) is one of the strongest aspects of the film. The interrelated narratives allow the directors to showcase the commonalities in human response and action across time and space. Faced with choices and consequences, we are driven by the same underlying desires and goals as were slaves in the 18th century or Prescients in the 25th. The interlacing of story threads highlights the development and growth of the characters. Growth for one character is mirrored by the same in others. The actions and reactions elicited by the world and circumstance are mirrored in the various stories. The use of intertwined tales allows minor growth and decision points to be seen for the magnitude they really are. Each character is breaking boundaries: from the trivial (talking to Ursula after escaping the old folk’s home) to the monumental (broadcasting the truth of fabricants), we are allowed to see this growth and change because they are placed in a parallel frame for the viewer.

Finally, I believe focusing on developing character in this film fails to capture the film’s message. This isn’t really a story about massive character growth and change. Had it been, I might still be in the theater. This is a movie about response and consequence. Events transpire. People respond. These responses have consequences, which travel outward, like the shockwaves of an earthquake. In this way, the interesting structure and casting actually detracts, in some ways, from the mission of the film. Humans seek pattern, to the extent that we will often imagine signal in the face of meaningless noise. Giving the viewer the same actors in each epic, while an interesting conceit, enchanting visual, and possible statement about reincarnation, allows the viewer to impute too much meaning onto the actors. We see Meronym and Zachry as Luisa and Isaac, Soonmi and Hae-Joo as Tilda and Adam Ewing. These connections undercut the meaning of the consequences of actions. By providing those connections, we impute meaning into the randomness. This is a story about the ripple spread when the pebble strikes the pond. To focus solely on one single water molecule moving up (or down), misses the goal. Acts, choices, and consequences reverberate in unexpected ways. Allowing people to accept the narrative that it’s some sort of karmic wheel by which a soul grows seems to allow an easy out for those who don’t want to think broadly about consequences of each action and choice they make.

The only casting that I think furthered this particular goal was that of Hugh Grant and Hugo Weaving. These two played forces rather than people, and their consistency helped show both resistance to change as well as the constant opposition that is the lot of life. As I’ve been writing this, I’ve been thinking a lot about how the film shows us the breaking of boundaries, the importance and the consequence. Each character is buffeted by change in some form, and they respond accordingly. But the big decision that each makes has to do with the response to the existence of boundaries in their life. The common representation of the forces of conservatism allows the viewer to see how these choices are all the same in their nature; to break the boundaries imposed (by society or cannibals), we have to choose to surmount our opposition.

I apologize for the rambling nature of this response. As I’ve been writing, I have lost the clarity that I had at the outset. Just thinking about it all has made me realize that I want to go and watch it again. Any of my friends up?