Cloud Atlas

Yesterday I went to the movie Cloud Atlas. I went in the evening, which I don’t usually do, but it turned out all right. The audience in the evening is more a going out kind of audience as opposed to the people who go watch a matinee just only for the movie itself. I must say that I was blown away by this movie, it is really very good. It is made by the makers of the Matrix and Lola Rennt and tells 6 different stories set in different times and places in the present and the future. The stories are all linked especially in subject matter. It is about making the world a better place and hope of a better future. The lead actors all play many double and triple roles, which is neat and also gives an extra sense of everything being linked together. Tom Hanks, Halley Berry, Hugh Grant and others must have had a great time acting out all these different roles, sometimes irrecognizable under layers of makeup. The first thing that struck me as remarkable was the movies use of highly saturated colour. Bright and clean. It especially makes for pretty pictures in the stories set in the past and in the future. The stories themselves all handle a difficult theme in a subtle way. Slavery, nuclear power, homosexuality, class. It isn’t a difficult movie, you can just let it overwhelm you. It gives you the need to go watch it again, and I will.