Cloud Atlas is an epic spanning centuries of humanity, from the transatlantic slave trade to the dystopic far future, exploring the connection between our souls, the omnipresence of the apocalypse, and the eternal fight for a better world. Through six different plotlines, these concepts are elucidated, with the recycling of actors highlighting the idea of reincarnation prevalent throughout. This is a film rife with meaning, examining the nuances of human identity and humanity’s paradoxical destructive and creative potential. Through the intricate combination of formal elements, a solid narrative structure is constructed for these large concepts of love and evil transcending time and space. These themes run throughout, crafting a film whose form mimics the ideas it explores, reaching back into the past to move forward with a new-found appreciation for life and its place in the universe.
Cloud Atlas explores how our souls are connected throughout time by developing a sense of individualism in the face of the collective. In the first scene, the distance conveyed through the cinematography in the opening wide shot of the night sky alludes to how we are governed by cosmic forces beyond our reach, while the mise-en-scene of stars suspended in the void is suggestive of individual souls bound by the darkness. This is highlighted by the first character depicted, Zachry, who states: “all voices, tied into one” – the combination of cinematography with writing conveys the danger of becoming lost to the darkness of life that binds us all together.
Yet this mise-en-scene of a darkness connecting us throughout time and space can also be interpreted as a positive thing. Later on in the film, Doona Bae and Jim Sturgess each play two different characters in different time periods, but a combination of formal elements conflates them. Sonmi says that she “will always be” in love with Sturgess’s character, because “death is only a door… behind it, I will find him there, waiting for me”. The typically negative connotations associated with death and darkness are inverted by becoming interlinked with the concept of love. The claustrophobic sensation induced by the set design’s grey steel box – connoting the oppressive power of the collective – is then juxtaposed with the bright halo lighting that floods the frame as Ewing opens this “door” and is reunited with his wife. Despite being different characters, the lovers in both the 19th and 22nd centuries are played by the same actors, with the editing and performance allowing an interplay between dialogue and cinematography, reinforcing the idea set-up by the film’s opening shot that our souls are connected throughout time.
Cloud Atlas makes it clear that individualism will ultimately save humanity from the destruction caused by the collective. Yet this is not an individualism of alienation as tends to be misconstrued, but one that finds value in a community of free-thinkers and individuals who understand their worth, where our separate souls can voluntarily connect, as opposed to the imposition of collective authority. The individualism of Cloud Atlas explores what makes our connection with one another stronger, because despite running the risk of becoming lost in the darkness, it is our discovery of each other – as free individuals – that binds our souls in a more complex and meaningful way.
This is further explored through the comet, a birthmark that each protagonist carries, a symbol that embodies the messianic and apocalyptic to present humanity’s constant unification and division. The first sequence of the film indicates this by rapidly cutting between different characters and time periods, setting the stage for each storyline following a different protagonist. From the optimistic brightness of the Carribean, to the dreary grey clouds of the city, to the depressing desolation of a decrepit apartment, each setting is marked by a different aesthetic, the mise-en-scene conveying the different times and mindsets. While the editing by itself would be disorientating, the tonal contrasts in visuals and writing associate each character with a distinctive style, grounding the large themes in something the spectator can readily grasp. Through the editing and aesthetic changes, Zachry’s “all voices, tied up into one” now also suggests that these seemingly distinct characters are part of a unified story. Yet Zachry also says “one voice different”, implying the protagonist is the one soul who can become detached from the collective – the different incarnations embodiments of the same character. The film makes this explicit through the comet motif, marking each protagonist as a single soul headed on a journey of self-discovery through multiple lifetimes. Just as stars can be seen to represent individual souls bound by time and space, the comet – reborn multiple times in the opening sequence – is the embodiment of an individual who breaks conventions in order to forge a path towards the future.
However, the opening does not reveal the birthmark, implying that the comet could be embodied by anyone, so its bearer is not inherently remarkable. This is explored in Sonmi’s speech. She is her plotline’s comet; but while the comet has fought to end injustices in every story depicted, the future only becomes more dystopian, with power consolidating in the hands of increasingly evil people. In our attempt to make things better, we bring the apocalypse upon ourselves, made evident by the hectic mise-en-scene of lasers, explosions and death juxtaposed against Sonmi as she cries while delivering her speech: “our lives are not our own… from womb to tomb, we are bound to others… past and present… and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future”. While initially this seems to support the interpretation that we are governed by forces we have no control over and require a “messiah” to save us, Sonmi adds another layer by implying we are responsible for each other, as no single individual can save humanity. As the Archivist says to Sonmi: “in your revelation you spoke of the consequences of an individual’s life rippling throughout eternity” – our actions never just affect us, as we are all part of the same human entity in this life and the next. So “by each crime” we fall as a species, “and every kindness” we begin to rise again, because the only future we can have is one that we have together.
The apocalypse is therefore our own doing, a macrocosm of the individual choices we are constantly making right now, not an event to be fought against, but an internal battle to be overcome. Thus, Cloud Atlas explores the comet not as a representation of the single most important individual in the entire world, but a symbol of our inherent creative and destructive power: it is both the apocalypse and salvation of our individual lives.
Cloud Atlas further explores this dual and paradoxical theme of humanity by asking whether our struggle against injustice is futile, or if our desire for better is the victory in itself. This is displayed with Frobisher, who kills himself with a gun in a dirty bathtub surrounded by peeling walls – the mise-en-scene highlighting his depression. He does this despite his extraordinary talent as a musician, a gift he could not benefit from because of the homophobia of his time. Hatred was Frobisher’s only reward for the beauty he tried to bring to the world, yet it is his music – the Cloud Atlas Sextet – that binds the souls of his six incarnations together: he understands that the struggle to create a better future is much longer than a single lifetime. The film cuts to the title screen before the gunshot is heard, the editing implying that while death is the point of the film, it is a distant concern; the narrative structure of ending the first sequence in this way highlights the irrelevance of death in making our vision reality.
This determination to pursue perfection, even if it means dying, is accentuated towards the end of the film. Here, Ewing announces he is joining the abolitionist movement, despite knowing all he will receive is hatred. As his father-in-law tells him – amidst the orange hues cast by the fire, suggesting imagery of a hell that has to be escaped: “There is a natural order to this world, and those who try to upend it do not fare well… No matter what you do, it will never amount to anything more than a single drop in a limitless ocean.” Our nature is fixed, so there is no sense in trying to change things. This is intercut with Sonmi being executed in a white room – the colour reinforcing the purity of death, a blank canvas for the individual to begin life anew – while the same actor that plays the father-in-law (Weaving) smugly looks at her with the collective power of the state behind him. The combination of editing, performance and writing highlights how the world will always be controlled by evil, with the cut back to Bae’s shocked face in the 19th century after her 22nd-century character dies emphasising the inevitability of our failure.
But Cavendish – the protagonist of another plot line – says earlier, “like Solzhenitsyn… I shall beaver away in exile. Unlike Solzhenitsyn, I shan’t be alone.” It is irrelevant if society chooses to shun us, because it is our individual identity that gives our lives meaning, not conformity to the collective. Ewing then references a phrase popularly attributed to Solzhenytsin (“one drop of truth can outweigh an ocean of lies”) by responding to his father-in-law with “what is an ocean, but a multitude of drops?” It is our sense of self that binds our individual stories together, allowing us all to become the comet. It does not matter if fighting for our values proves to be futile, because the act of defiance towards evil is what allows the individual to flourish.
As such, Cloud Atlas presents each life as individual drops or stars in the ocean and sky, by ourselves not capable of much, but through our actions shaping the world we want to live in. The comet – a paradoxical symbol of desired salvation and impending doom – is precisely the manifestation of humanity’s dichotomous nature, a symbol of the conflict within ourselves we must all learn to resolve. But it is only through a commitment to our individual identities that we can escape the tyranny of the world, and as the film’s very final scene reveals, these two prophetic souls – who have reincarnated throughout time only to experience suffering – have at last created the beginning of a new human race on another planet.
