Cloud Atlas (Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis, 2012)

[captveg]

Certainly ambitious, and most definitely finely crafted, yet I don't feel as drawn to it as I wanted to be. I think I would have liked it more as six episodes in a mini-series where each story was its own. All the crossovers delayed the storytelling of each other, so I was nearly always a scene or two ahead of where each was at. I liked it at times, and felt unattached at others. I think most people will find it befuddling in the end. 7/10

[Professor Wagstaff]

At some point late in the film I asked myself if I thought any of the storylines would be interesting as their own film. Apart from the Ben Whishaw segment, nothing stood out to me beyond their lush visual elements. The experience reminded me a lot of The Fountain at double the running time. It's a mess, for sure, but an interesting one. I'll check out the book soon and see how they both match up.

[Drucker]

Apparently, truly disappointing box office figures.

[Sonmi451]

I've been lurking on these forums for a while, and I finally decided to post, since Cloud Atlas is literally my favorite all-time novel. Of course I was excited when I heard it was being made into a film - though I was always worried it was truly "unfilmable" - and I was rather underwhelmed when they announced the choice of directors. It seems my trepidation was not unwarranted.

Of course, one cannot criticize a film for simply being different from the book. By definition, an epic 500 page novel will have a vast majority excised, even in an almost 3 hour film. What can be critized, however, is when major plot points are obscured or changed outright. Each of the six stories had large chunks that were altered from the book, or were completely non-existant in the book, especially the Sonmi-451 story (my favorite from the novel, as you might deduce from my screenname).

But that is not even my main criticism. Sometimes, even when you adore the book, you must judge the film on its own merits. The Shining - for example - bears little resemblance to the book, but judged on its own it is a fantastic film. Cloud Atlas is not. It was entirely too glossy for the subject matter (it reminded me of The Hunger Games in parts, not a good thing), and the gimmick of having actors play multiple roles wore out its welcome rather early. While it would have been impossible, I think, to incorporate the book's nested doll structure, I found the constant cuts in the film frustrating and jumbled, and it did not allow the audience to become truly immersed in the stories.

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In the book I took the idea of reincarnation as merely symbolic and allegorical. In the film it is beaten over your head ad nauseum. Any sublety from the book is completely lost.

The action sequences felt forced, and the makeup and accents of the actors were - for the most part - distracting rather than affecting.

It would have taken a visionary director (or directors) to bring this story to fruition. The effort was certainly ambitious, and I don't mean to give the impression that I think this is a bad film. It is not. It is merely a decent one that does not live up to David Mitchell's masterpiece. 6/10

[tarpilot]

Apparently, truly disappointing box office figures.

I have yet to see the film, but I was pulling for a strong financial showing in (very faint) hopes that it could sway some suit to greenlight an adaptation of Pynchon's Mason & Dixon. Oh, well. I guess The Fall is as close as I'll ever get...

[CSM126]

I've never read the book, so I went into this knowing very little of what to expect. I have to say it simply bowled me over. Cloud Atlas is big and messy as hell, yes, but it's a glorious kind of messiness that (and I know this will sound kind of trite) mirrors the messiness of life itself, which seems to fit with the film's overall theme of simply showing people experiencing life in various ways. The various plot strands do become hard to follow, but after a while I realized that it didn't matter because the individual plots aren't the point of the film at all. It's just about sharing in the wonder of being alive in the first place, and the various forms that wonder takes in different periods throughout history. For me, it all just clicked together, especially as the credits rolled and they showed which actors played which characters (some of them really surprised me*, which is a credit to the make-up effects). Those quick montages just made the whole experience perfect. I actually got choked up. Tykwer and Wachowski Starship (god I love that) should be commended just for being ambitious and/or crazy enough to even try making something this huge, but the fact that they pulled it off and created a film that is almost indescribably beautiful is mind-boggling. I never really saw any of them as anything special before, but now I suddenly have a huge rush of respect and admiration for them. This is glorious.

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*Especially Halle Barry as the Korean doctor and Jim Sturgess as Georgette, and I never would have guessed that Hugh Grant had played anyone other than the power plant politician

[Mr Buttle]

I'd like to echo CSM126's feelings; I was dazzled by the film. I felt swept away in a delirious wash of images and I didn't want it to end.

What I particularly love is the way that there is no 'answer' that 'explains' the connections between the various stories; rather, the pleasure comes from the moments of deja vu and the strange chills down the spine that result when incidents and lines in each of the 6 stories chime with and echo each other. I feel I could see this film many times and continually find new things in it, some of which may be intended, others not. It's not just a creative film, it inspires and generates creativity in the viewer as they form their own connections and interpretations.

I absolutely adored this film. It is a completely crazy labour of love that will never make its money back. And it's full of heart and it's full of passion for life and for cinema. I never thought thought I'd be saying this about a film by the Wachowskis....

[Galen Young]

- and I was rather underwhelmed when they announced the choice of directors.

Having read the book a couple of times I'd disagree, it's easy to see what drew the Wachowski's to the stories. I was excited to see what they would do with it. Never expected to see the entire book on the screen. Not sure it would even work as a mini-series -- the resonance of its structure could probably only work as well as it does on the printed page.

...when major plot points are obscured or changed outright.

Not sure what plot points you're referring to, maybe --

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Sonmi broadcasting her Declarations?
Frobisher trying to kiss Ayers, then later shooting him?
Pole Tadeusz Augustowski changed to German Tadeusz Kesselring? (Hugo Weaving's riff on Fritz Lang was marvelous!)
Ewing burning the contract?
Joe Napier surviving?
Meronym sending a message from the observatory?
What else am I missing?

Didn't feel like any of these substantially changed character or plot, more an extrapolation from the events and things hinted at.

Not really surprised that many characters and subplots were dropped and that the Sonmi~451 and Sloosha's Crossin' stories were 'sexed up' to include more 'Hollywood' action tropes. Even the added bookends re-purposed from Sloosha's Crossin' didn't kill it for me. I felt it was a kind of "best of" compilation of moments from the book woven into a fantastic mosaic. Was very happy they managed to work in the final lines of the book in a way that was quite moving. Have seen it only three times now, damn I need to see it again!

[Sonmi451]

Not sure what plot points you're referring to, maybe --

Indeed some of those, but more so:

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Hae-Joo being an agent provacateur, no Eva, Sixsmith finding Frobisher dead, car crashes in Buenas Yerbas (besides the one on the bridge [though what's a Tykwer film without car crashes?]), Zach'ry being middle aged and escaping with Catkin and Meronym to another planet, extensive shootouts and chases in Nea So Copros, and many other slightly more minor details

Either way, it appears I am in the minority here. I do need to give it another watch, now that I know what to expect, because as the film ruminates a bit, I now realize that going in it was next to impossible for the film to meet or exceed my expectations, which of course is not fair to the film.

[Galen Young]

Indeed some of those, but more so:

Those are good, but since we're nitpicking --

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Hae-Joo Im's name is changed to Hae-Joo Chang. (combining his character with the Mr. Chang, who leads Sonmi out of Papa Song's
(instead of Hae-Joo) after finding Seer Rhee dead from a Soap overdose, though in the film it looks like Hae-Joo may have killed him)

Sonmi reads all the banned books in Boom-Sook Kim's lab, not Hae-Joo's apartment.

Hae-Joo is sort of an 'agent provocateur' in that he does hide his identity from Sonmi ("I am not xactly who I said I am." becomes
"Who are you?") as a member of the Union rebellion; gets her to read banned books and watch "The Ghastly Ordeal..." film and leads
her to General Apis. (Apis refers to Hae-Joo in the book as "Commander Im".)

When Sonmi first meets An-Kor (General) Apis, he is in the image of a carp (the fish) in a water tank.

Hae-Joo takes Sonmi to a doctor who removes her 'subcutaneous barcode' not her collar. (and later to a 'facescaper', not shown in the film.)

I loved the added line "I believe there is already one" Sonmi's final word to Archivist and loved James D'arcy's expression of recognition to it.
Sonmi's execution is shown in the film but not in the book.

Yoona~939 shows Sonmi a clip from "The Ghastly Ordeal..." film of Cavendish saying "I will not be subject to criminal abuse" (a reoccurring
line in the film that Cavendish does not say in the book) instead of the book Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Anderson.

Yoona~939 has sex with Seer Rhee instead of Rhee having her medically 'reoriented' and is killed by Seer Rhee by detonating her collar
instead of by an enforcer with a gun.

Rufus Sixsmith is not in bed with Frobisher when Frobisher jumps out the hotel window.

Frobisher never finds the second half of Ewings journal. (though we are teased with a couple of shots of where it was.)

When Cavendish calls out from Aurora House, he talks to Denholme instead of Georgette, who had informed him that Denny was dead.

Cavendish drives back to pick up Mr. Meeks instead of Meeks magically materializing in the back seat after having rammed the gates.
(I did think the earlier Meeks line "Please don't leave me behind" was a brilliant addition, used in a great comic moment.)

Cavendish gets back together with Ursula.

Luisa Rey is summoned by Rufus Sixsmith, where she has a near miss encounter with Bill Smoke and finds Sixsmith dead (instead of learning
about his death in a newspaper article) and takes the Frobisher letters out from under Sixsmith (instead of finding them later after
impersonating Megan Sixsmith.)

Luisa Rey finds Sixsmith's office by chance at the Swannekke power plant instead of asking around to find it and then walks in finding
Isaac Sachs. (in the film Sachs walks in finding Luisa.)

Luisa Rey gives the Frobisher letters back to Megan Sixsmith instead of Megan mailing her more Frobisher letters in the end.

Bill Smoke kills the dog instead of Bisco and the Mexican factory woman kills Bill Smoke instead of Bisco. (and instead of Joe Napier
killing Smoke later on the boat.)

Autua doesn't fight with Henry Goose, but does nurse Ewing back to health; Ewing bashes his trunk over Henry Goose's head (killing him?)
to save Autua during the fight, spilling out gold coins instead of Goose opening the trunk himself and finding no money.

Zachry has the comet birthmark instead of Meronym.

Would agree that Hanks as Zachry was a stretch, always imagined him to be younger. My mind's eye had a completely different image of Old Georgie, but I love what they did with the makeup for him in the film. The constant hovering by his ear is how I imagined it and Hugo Weaving's performance is terrific.

Something I do miss from the book from the Sonmi story is the use of words like 'nike' 'sony' 'starbuck' 'kodak' as nouns. The Archivist does tell Sonmi "You speak Consumer well." (!)

One minor detail in Cloud Atlas the book that bugs me is the passing references to Hitchcock: Rufus Sixsmith seems to confuse Charade with being a Hitchcock film (in context, this have may have been done on purpose?) but later, when Megan asks Luisa what her uncle's favorite Hitchock film was, Luisa says: "He admired that wordless passage in Vertigo where Cary Grant trails the mysterious woman to the waterfront with the San Francisco backdrop." Can't figure if this really a mistake by Mitchell or if Luisa is repeating a wrong memory from Sixsmith...? Confusing and aggravating, considering the attention to detail in the book!

[CSM126]

Saw this again last night and was surprised by how many little connections I had missed the first time around.

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example: Luisa telling the party goer that she'd like to "throw you off the balcony", and later on, of course, another character played by the same actor gets thrown off a balcony

I also found myself completely overwhelmed on an emotional level all over again. There are so many lush, beautiful moments in this film and

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I'm fairly certain the china shop scene (dream?) is the most romantic thing I've ever seen. Heartbreakingly, tear-inducingly beautiful

. I never would have expected a Hollywood big budget release like this to be such a powerful, gorgeous, and demanding work of art. I only wish it was still playing in IMAX because seeing it on a normal screen does not match up to seeing it larger than one's own field of vision! I'll cherish that experience always!

[Sonmi451]

Those are good, but since we're nitpicking --

Indeed, those would be some of the more minor details I was referencing. Also, besides perhaps the Cavendish story, I just felt the tone was slightly off in each of the stories in the film, as compared to the book.

the passing references to Hitchcock

I don't think this is a mistake, I seem to recall in the book it being made known that Sixsmith indeed confused Charade with being a Hitchcock film.

Not sure it would even work as a mini-series -- the resonance of its structure could probably only work as well as it does on the printed page.

I disagree, I'm beginning to think a mini-series would have been the only viable way to faithfully adapt the novel to the screen. In that format I think it would have even been possible to retain the nested doll format (whereas in a feature film it would have been impossible since - as the directors noted - the audience wouldn't stand for a new story being introduced 100 minutes in). But in mini-series format it would have worked quite well, I think, to have six one-hour episodes, basically following the structure of the book. So it could have had episode one start with Ewing Part I, and conclude with Zedelghem Part I, episode two start with Luisa Rey Part I, and conclude with Cavendish Part I, and so on, then wrap back around with episodes 4-6 concluding all of the stories. It's all moot now of course, I just wish I could have seen something like that.

There are so many lush, beautiful moments in this film and

I agree, that scene is quite beautiful.

[htshell]

I thought this film was really wonderfully done. It created a really interesting, fragmented roadmap through the plot that reminded me of other films that have done so in other innovative ways, Mysteries of Lisbon and Peter Greenaway's Tulse Luper Suitcases in particular. I also thought the CGI was not too intense and the visual effects looked relatively naturalistic. The only sequences that bothered me was the slot-motion china shop shot (it looked like the visual qualities changed to something entirely different than any other shot in the film during that short sequence) and perhaps the sequence of the

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meat-hook bodies

.

[FerdinandGriffon]

Cloud Atlas: The Movie takes all of the worst aspects of the novel and elevates them to an eye searingly lofty level of camp, kitsch and Hollywood cliche. The result is a work of pop cinema that, unlike the dull and silly novel, is deliriously fun. It's still not a profound or even good film, but it is far more entertaining than other similarly "serious" American films of the year, and much more generous and blind in its ambition. As soon as the Blu-Ray is released it should be shoved in a time capsule and preserved for future generations as the ultimate encyclopedia and apotheosis of liberal values/new age culture (synonymous?) circa 2012. No wonder it's bombed at the box office; audiences must have felt like they were looking in a mirror, with all of their own absurdities projected 70 feet high in slow-motion and IMAX.

I've got some faith that the Wachowskis are in on their own joke, less that Tykwer gets it, if just because the Wachowskis' sequence are the most kinetic, fun, and well-crafted, while Twyker's are a little more earnest and maudlin.

[colinr0380]

The more I hear about Cloud Atlas, the more it sounds similar to that Bill Forsyth film Being Human.

[domino harvey]

And wasn't it too initially three hours long?

[NilbogSavant]

I've got some faith that the Wachowskis are in on their own joke, less that Tykwer gets it, if just because the Wachowskis' sequence are the most kinetic, fun, and well-crafted, while Twyker's are a little more earnest and maudlin.

The distinction made in the credits between who directed which scene was a guild requirement. The whole movie was an equal collaboration.

[knives]

I've got some faith that the Wachowskis are in on their own joke, less that Tykwer gets it, if just because the Wachowskis' sequence are the most kinetic, fun, and well-crafted, while Twyker's are a little more earnest and maudlin.

I'd agree (this film can't be considered typically good considering the awful waste of Jim Broadbent that boasts his main story), but the Whishaw story is pretty fantastic and I'd love to see it done stand alone by Mike Leigh or someone like that. I get what the three were trying to do, but I don't think they ever made it work well and I was reminded of how much better this was done in Ruiz's Love Torn in a Dream. The film is a total fiasco and sometimes very obnoxious with Berry and Hanks giving career worst performances (which says something in the case of the ex-Ms. Sharon Stone), but the occasional bright spot is almost worth all of the missed opportunities.

[dad1153]

Count me in the camp that, while clearly seeing all its flaws (mediocre-to-bad individual performances by all actors in at least one of their multiple roles, the 'Hollywood' action scenes/jokes dropped in to spice the narrative, some make-up work not being up to par with the rest, etc.), was completely blown away by "Cloud Atlas'" ambition and overall ability to add-up to more than the sum of its many messy parts. It really helped that I'd seen Spielberg's "Lincoln" the day before because narratively both movies are linked by the idea that at any given time someone/something has the capacity for greatness that affects us all. As an editor I loved how the end of each segment links to the next and, considering how easily this could have made incomprehensible in the hands of an incompetent editor, that "Cloud Atlas" isn't at all hard to follow (hope we get a "Terminator 2"-sized chapter divide). The ending and the montage of actors/roles during the credits (nice touch that the fonts for the actors' names changed along with each of their roles) nailed it for me, got me teary-eyed (as did the Frobisher-Sixsmith story toward the end) and sent me out the theater feeling like I had seen something spectacularly messy but wonderful.

Given they're now on a severe box office downward spiral ("The Invasion," "Speed Racer," "Ninja Assassin") this might be the last time The Wachowski's have access to these resources, so it's amazing to me that they managed to maximize their $100 million budget (a lot of which went to pay for Hanks, Berry, etc.) to deliver what amounts to "The Fountain 2.0" on a bigger, yet still intimate and personal, scale. "Cloud Atlas" gets my award for most ambitious failure of 2012, which to me are often the types of movies that are more fun to rewatch than better or universally-loved films.

[colinr0380]

I liked the film a lot too, although I can see where it could annoy people in the sense that I never really felt a sense of engagement with any particular era's plot - the characters yes, but the plots never felt more than a shadow version of more intricate individual films. (It is a film begging for all of those technical terms of the syuzhet not being as important as the fabula, and so on!) So we get the Bounty/Ghost Ship/Amistad 1849 era, the Brideshead Revisited/Maurice/Delius: Song of Summer 1936 era, the China Syndrome 1973 era, the One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest/Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War 2012 era, The Matrix/2046/Soylent Green (I suppose not really a spoiler since one of Jim Broadbent's iterations effectively signals it mid-way through the film) 2144 era and the Lord of the Rings/Conan The Barbarian/Lost TV series far far future era. I'm wildly oversimplifying of course but I like the way that each of the various plotlines in the various eras seem easily graspable in such a manner (plus, once the connection has been made between Hugo Weaving's evil voice in Tom Hanks' head in the far future section and the amoral imaginary friend Squidge in that recent Full English animated series, it cannot be unseen! Hugo Weaving obviously has the best roles in all the eras, from voice in the head to brutal female nurse to angry assassin, proving yet again that the bad guys are great fun to play!)

I think anyone approaching the film because they want just a whistleblowing conspiracy thriller, or gay romance, high seas adventure tale or sci-fi action spectacular are going to be disappointed as individually these segments do not exactly add anything new to their respective lexicons.

However this is because the real emphasis of the film lies in the extremely intricate editing patterns and parallel actions between the eras. The beauty and power of the film comes from the way that two or three eras at a time hit the same point simultaneously, harmonising and resonating more deeply with that connection. This might not just be to hit a plot point, or act as a way to simply move the stories along, but can often also just be to emphasise a specific theme in a specific part of the journey of the entire film (love, rebellion, compassion, murder, betrayal, caring, friendship, solidarity, knowledge, sacrifice and so on).

The best idea of the film is the way that a decent or courteous act can end up reverberating later on in the narrative as you yourself are saved or redeemed in turn. The characters can be physically saved as in the 1849, 1973 or 2012 sections, or have your small action save spur a wider movement, as in the 2144 era. Although sometimes your well meaning actions can still result in tragedy, either in not being there for others, or arriving too late to be of use, as in the 1936 or far future eras.

It is quite an impressive feat to manage to structure the film so that each era resonates at the correct time to match the others, although that is likely helped by the way that the film mostly focuses on cutting between two, or at the most three, eras at a time, which likely allows a little leeway in manipulation in order to set up these resonances (a little like the way the 24 TV series, ostensibly proceeding in real time without any break, has to juggle 'off screen' action and manipulate time in order to ensure that the characters will be in the right place for maximum effect, and you can therefore guess that certain sections are being held back, or 'prepared', ready for a certain important section of the film to hit).

Then we get those very impressive quick montage sections that break up the huge chunks of action that have focused on 2x(two or three intercut eras) with a sweeping overview span of edits that encompass all the eras, bring the audience up to speed on where all the characters have gotten to and prepare for the next challenges that they will face in the next section. I especially like the way that those montage sequences are narrated by each of the main actors, bringing the viewpoint of their characters to the fore and showing their awareness of time in the form of a meta-narrative summation.

It would take somebody with a better knowledge of the structure of music than myself to be able to answer the question of whether these editing patterns are mimicing the function of musical 'movements' within a whole piece of work (and therefore the editing is mimicing the structure of the Cloud Atlas composition within the film), but it certainly feels as if that is the intention of the filmmakers.

I also like the way that the six plotlines span several 'emotional genres' from high tragedy and world shattering revolution through to the contemporary, rather small scale in comparison, escape from a nursing home played almost entirely for laughs. Similarly (and what can be in danger of being lost in all of the more superficial tabloid-friendly talking points about the way that the actors turn up under latex and exchanging races during the course of the film, although this film is an interesting validation of the point made in the critics commentaries over the Matrix films that there is a general attitude in the Wachowski films, maybe mirroring youth culture, that it just isn't 'cool' to be just one race or sex, but instead to be able to be anything - something which is admirable in one way but runs the risk of losing something in emphasising that interchangability and loss of specificity and value of individual experience) I like the way that each actor is playing a kind of archetypal character who doesn't really change in overall demeanour (Explorers, Investigators and Revolutionaries set against Interrogators, Wardens and Assassins) over the eras but has a slightly different balance of characteristics within that that shades them one way or the other. For example Tom Hanks never really plays a fully 'good' character (the nearest he gets is in the 1973 and far future sections where he is conflicted about his wrongdoings, in one being redeemed by proxy and in the other redeemed fully) but he can be a 'company man' trying to belatedly do the right thing or an out and out antihero wrestling with his demons and succeeding at the better end of the spectrum.

Though that does bring out the slight flaw in the concept - that you wonder if the entire world has been populated by more than just the same dozen or so souls in constant rotation throughout the whole of human history! Although I suppose it adds a whole new dimension to those "who would play me in the story of my life?"-type questions...do I consider myself more of a Hugh Grant or a Halle Berry? (OK, OK, I know I'm really a Jim Broadbent)

Another aspect that I particularly liked was the way that earlier eras end up being re-told and elaborated on in book/journal/letter/film/video playback form that always seems to make them seem much more spectacular, then when we actually get to, say Sonmi's speech, it plays much flatter and less epically when viewed objectively (the funniest example is the broadly comic Broadbent escape from the nursing home getting turned into the rather glossy and shallow looking Tom Hanks starring film that Sonmi views, but which provides her with the philosophy of a door opening that she uses in her own denoument). It is as if another theme of the film is to illustrate the separation between the past and future, the way that we impose our own ideas onto artifacts of an older era in eye of the beholder fashion. Of course there is a religious element to be taken from that (in the sense that how do we tell if someone truly was what they have been built up to be), but also a beautifully prosaic one too (in the sense of what does it matter if a person is truly 'great' or not if they are able to inspire us in our own actions?)

So definitely worth a watch, for its beautifully intricate structure more than for any one individual story though. I also was very glad to see that, surprisingly for a Tom Tykwer film, some characters actually avoid getting run over by a car! Although it is not for want of trying!

[Michael Kerpan]

I enjoyed this quite a bit -- despite the fact that I could easily find things to criticize. This was a very short-seeming 3-hour film. BAE Doona was quite good in her main role (and not bad at all in her other ones).

[captveg]

I watched the film again (third time overall) rather recently and I've found that I've liked it more each time. After a second viewing I bumped up my score to 8/10, and now after a third I've bumped it up again to 9/10. It's already aged well in just a little over three years. Many of the problems are still inherently there, but they just don't bother me nearly as much, and the ambition and earnestness of the project fills in a lot of those cracks. I've also found that thinking of it as the 100-years-later remix of Griffith's Intolerance helps contextualize its bold story structure as something to be admired even if it doesn't always pull together cleanly.

[Mr Sausage]

Finished the book yesterday and watched the movie today. They are both works fascinated by the idea of continuity.

The novel folds inward and then unfolds outward again, so that the future seems to be contained and surrounded by the past—or more accurately, future stories are contained and surrounded by past stories.

The movie replaces the novel's structure of unfolding stories with a structure of pure simultaneity. The past and the future seem to be happening all at once, more like multiple universes than a single chronology, with the events of this or that story more explicitly fulfilling the narrative or emotional beats of another. So what the novel accomplishes through narrative—with stories occurring within other stories—the movie accomplishes through crosscutting. The movie does have the same narrative element of each story being discovered in another story, but it's deemphasized not only by the lack of an unfolding structure but, more keenly, the presence of multiple actors across each story, something that lends a greater sense of continuity than the presence of one tale in another ever could.

The movie manages to be even more melodramatic and earnest than the novel. And much like the novel, it doesn't really try to match its formal style to each story's genre: the aesthetic is consistent throughout. The novel was enjoyable enough, but the movie is bogged down by its sincere commitment to its metaphysics, a metaphysics that, in the novel, is meant only to facilitate the narrative structure. But the movie's commitment to its metaphysics means there's no way to take the movie seriously unless you too think the continuity of souls and the eternity of love is an important, awe-inspiring idea. I don't, so the movie just seems maudlin and ridiculous. The book at least believed in this idea only insofar as it believed in the power of narrative, since a number of the stories are fabricated narratives (within other fabricated narratives), so it's all pure narrative any way.

So both are formally inventive and impressive works, but only the book manages to carry the whole thing off. That said, for a much more interesting example of the same kind of thing, only with an emphasis on discontinuity and a more complex attitude towards theme and meaning, I recommend Christopher Priest's superb novel The Adjacent.

[Trees]

The Neo Seoul sections of the film were great.

[knives]

I agree with you entirely, but I do think there's a little bit more here then mere continuity of souls breeding love eternal. The choice of connected actors strikes me as a coming out of the closet with the Wachowskis (I don't know what any of this does for Tykwer) with the set up being a, mind's pausing on me for the actual word I want, promotion and plea for transgender acceptance and understanding.