This just came out in Ireland.
It’s the best movie I’ve seen all year, I absolutely loved it.
Loved it, loved it, loved it.
I’m not at all sure what I was looking at. Or, in the end, why.
Somewhat confused; I only managed about 30% of the book but I thought the film had an entirely different shape to it - didn’t it?
I went in not really knowing what to expect. I’d heard some people call it a mess and others call it ambitious. So I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I did. One of the best films I’ve seen for a long time. Now I must check out the book.
I saw this last week, as it’s just been released here. I was considering going again today, but ultimately decided not to, although I may see it again - I think I probably need to to get a full handle on it.
To me, it seemed like a cross between The Matrix and Inception, and came across as a grand, sweeping statement of absolutely nothing. Some people, at various times, look vaguely like each other and discover remnants of the other’s stories. That said, I’m fundamentally a nihilist, and I’m sure that someone who believes in reincarnation and/or destiny could find that meaning in the film; it seems open enough to support multiple meanings.
I loved the “after the fall” sections, especially the use of language. I couldn’t pick out every word, but the meaning was always clear, which led to a greater appreciation for the acting involved, from two actors who haven’t always impressed me in the past. The Neo-Seoul sections seemed to me to be the meat of the movie, with the deepest story and most interesting characters, and the most true meaning, if that makes sense.
Most of the earlier sections seemed like somewhat lightweight genre exercises, with few particularly interesting characters. Jim Broadbent’s composer and editor were two of the most unpleasant characters I’ve seen for a long time, and not in a particularly enjoyable way.
Overall, a worthwhile film, extremely well made and directed, but overall not as good as it thinks it is. It’s possible a second viewing will pull some threads together, but that may have to wait until the DVD comes out.
To my mind, the meaning comes from the connections between the stories - the reincarnation stuff I thought to be a mere thread; the realy depth comes from the relationships in the themes - the exploration of the difference between true civilization, based on empathy for others, and barbarism, based on narrow exploitation of self-interest (‘the weak are meat for the strong’). In each story, characters are faced with the choice of which philosophy to pursue, in their particular cultural setting …
The fun in the film is in following this meta-narrative through the individual stories.
*Disclaimer: I didn’t read the whole thread. *
Well, I finally ordered the movie on PPV and have watched about an hour of it. Blech.
I’ll finish it, I guess, but it’s such a crazy quilt of characters and situations thrown AT you in the first few minutes. The book let you spend time with each character in his/her section so you got to know them. Then you were abruptly snatched away from each storyline at a climactic moment and thrust into another story, but you already cared about the character(s) you had gotten to know. And you had a toehold in each story. And then, at the halfway point, when you find out… holy cow! What a moment! At least for me, it was one of the best moments in literature I’ve ever had.
The first 30 minutes of the movie reminded me of those coming attractions (“Here are some scenes from next week’s episode!”) you see where there’s a snippet here and a snippet there but you don’t know who the people are and don’t care about them.
I’m sure the movie is brilliant. It seems to be brilliantly made anyway. If I get through it and if I see anything I like, I’ll come back with a followup comment.
What worked brilliantly in a book would not necessarily work so well in a movie.
To my mind, the inter-cutting of scenes was one of the movie’s strengths - it uses the media of film to advantage, doing something that could not be done (as well) in a book format.
Disclaimers: I saw the movie, didn’t read the book, and didn’t read this whole thread.
ThelmaLou, thanks for your post. The book sounds brilliant, and I wish I’d read it.
I knew nothing of the story when I went to see the movie, and I saw it when it first came out. For me, the scene inter-cuttings came across as disjointed. It was tough to follow, and unlike ThelmaLou, I never bonded with the characters before we were snatched away.
I saw the movie a second time, and it was just meh.
I wish I’d read the book and had the ah-ha! moment and bonding experience described by ThelmaLou.
And, I am a Tom Hanks fan. I don’t dislike any of the movie’s actors. So that’s not part of my reaction to the movie.
Clearly, many people felt as you do. OTOH, my wife, who has never read the book, found the inter-cuttings relatively easy to follow.
Different strokes and all.
Different strokes, indeed. Cool, I’m glad it worked for you and your wife. And, my wife didn’t care for it, either. Oh well…
Just watched it. Absolutely mesmerizing. I loved it and found it easy enough to follow.
I loved this movie. I haven’t read the book and I didn’t see it in the theater, but it’s currently available on demand on Comcast. I ordered it last night and I had two days to watch it. I actually watched it twice. last night and today, and I really enjoyed it both times. I watched it a second time to try to tie things together better in my head, and I did notice things the second time through that I missed the first time.
Regarding the dialects in the “after the fall” segments. Watching it on TV had the advantage of being able to turn on the closed captioning. The captions were still in dialect, but they were easy enough to understand in text.
I don’t think it was a mess at all, as some claim. Even though the second viewing tied it together better for me, I found it clear enough and very enjoyable the first time. And I’m someone who got bored silly and totally lost trying to follow Inception.
I saw the movie a few months ago when it was at the dollar theater. My first reaction was that it was too complicated for its own good. I didn’t dislike it, but I was glad I hadn’t ponied up $10 to see it.
But the film hasn’t left my brain since. Especially the very end, with Zachry and Meronym and all their multi-hued grandbabies. I hope this is the way humankind goes.
I said virtually the same thing to my husband. I found Inception boring and hard to follow, but I found Cloud Atlas much easier.
I watched it over yesterday and today, and I can’t get it out of my head…
That describes me. I can’t get it out of my head.
I do have a couple of questions. At one point, Sonmi was being shown what appeared to be a plant that was processing bodies into the food called soap. How were they able to seemingly openly gain access to that facility? I was confused about that.
Also, she said something like “the ship must be destroyed”. What ship? Was the processing occurring in some sort of ship?
Yup, it’s on a ship - part of the disguise was that these people were going on a voyage to their promised land. But the ship never leaves to dock.
They get access by posing as part of the work detail, I believe.
Okay. Thank you for the explanation. That’s something the movie didn’t seem to be very clear about. Regardless, I enjoyed it.
They kept talking about “exultation” and pronounced it that way, but the close captioning spelled it “xultation”. Am I right in assuming that’s from the book?
Yes, all “ex” words are spelled like that in the Sonmi chapter, like xistence and xplain.
This is maybe a bit of a stretch, but I thought the ship functioning as floating butcher and meat-packing factory was also meant to hearken back to the whaling ships of Ewing’s day.