Cloud Atlas..???

[ToraToraTora]

Watched it last night, can anyone explain what happenned, couldn't make head nor tail of it!

[AB Editor]

Try the book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cloud-Atlas-David-Mitchell/dp/0340822783

The book is a series of snippets of lives across hundreds of years, all slightly related. The book has 6 stories, 5 of which are broken into two and surround the others like this: 1 2 3 4 55 4 3 2 1 - so you get the part 1s and part 2s together (while the next chapter, or skip forward in time gives you some indication of the previous chapter's outcome).

There is a slim suggestion that some of these people are "spiritually" the same... if you want to read that into it... It's really about how stories get passed on.

My understanding is they failed when making the film by making the "spiritual continuation" quite obviously the only reading available... meaning when there are inevitable disjointed moments, it seems confused rather than playing with form...

So, what happened?: Too much money thrown at an un-filmable book.

[jno]

unfilmable book... unreadable if you ask me, and I did try.

[AB Editor]

It did suffer from trying to be a bit clever, when it doesn't really need to.

I like David Mitchell's writing very much - so if that's what you disliked Jno then I can understand why you put it down. It was the writing which got me through Cloud Atlas (despite it's flaws).

I really like #9 Dream, which has some structural toybox moments, but mostly just tells a story of a chap looking for his father in a big city. It's not as beautifully written as something like Ghostwritten, but it has more oomph :)

[ToraToraTora]

Thanks, I was beginning to wonder if I'd missed the obvious! I thought the future bit could have made a good story/film in it's own right. I similar story to the excellent Metropolis by Fritz Lang. I also found the OAP home/prison quite amusing.

[AB Editor]

The book's a bit like that too - most people will enjoy certain parts of it over other bits!

They could have got 6 films out of it really. It's a bit of a waste to try and go for that unfilmable central premise while having to leave out large chunks of what makes each section as good as it is!

I'd like to see Mitchell do some straight-up Sci-fi, rather than ironic-it-was-all-a-dream flourishes he likes to stick in everywhere.

If the Wachowski brothers/siblings had just focused on that last future section we could have been in for some vaguely mindless fun!

[jno]

it wasn't the writing so much as the fractured format - a story stops in the middle of a page and it's the perfect reminder that you've got to go and peel the spuds or wash your hair. Instead of an unputdownable book you've got a book whose author gives you every opportunity to put it down. High-risk strategy.