Cloud Atlas

We all like a good thinker every so often. Whether it's a Sixth Sense style "waaaaaaaaaaaah!?" moment or something just plain confusing like Mulholland Drive, quite a good deal of us seem to be drawn to things that make our heads hurt. Sometimes you get a big budgeted confusing film which throws a huge cast of respected players at you, and sometimes that's a terrible thing. Often these are based on successful novels, which is also sometimes a terrible thing. But sometimes it just might work. This is Cloud Atlas.

For those who've read this blog before, you'll know I like to throw together a brief, preferably not spoiler-laden summary of the plot of the film I'm rambling on about. This, however, is somewhat of a challenge for Cloud Atlas, as it is in fact six stories which weave together to build one overall theme. That theme is more or less that a good deed against intolerance can have an effect on the lives, and therefore troubled situations faced by others for years to come. So here's my briefest of briefs on each of the stories: a 19th century American lawyer travelling by ship to San Francisco to conclude a slavery contract, encountering a slave on the way; a 1930s English bisexual musician takes on work as an amanuensis to a famous composer, privately working on his own masterpiece, "The Cloud Atlas Sextet"; a 1970s American journalist looks to follow in her father's footsteps, trying to uncover a conspiracy involving a nuclear reactor, in a plot for oil company success; a present-day English publisher is made an unwilling resident of a retirement home by his brother in his attempts to escape the angry cohorts of an imprisoned former client; a 22nd century Korean clone is freed from her slave-like job by a Union rebel, in an effort to expose the horrors of fabricant life; a distant future tribesman reluctantly helps a technologically advanced Prescient to climb a mountain in order to activate a signal to all human life which has fled Earth. Confused enough? Good. Because I'm simply not going to explain it much more. Each of the stories are heavily, yet not blatantly linked to the others, ranging from pieces of music, to characters actually appearing in multiple stories. If I go into more detail, not only will a tie myself into a gigantic, confused mess, muttering about sci-fi colliding with old people's homes and cannibals, but, more importantly, I'll start giving things away.

The cast is fairly notable, and, once more, confusing. There are seven main actors in the film, and (with only a couple of exceptions), they all feature as a character in each of the stories, and each is the lead in one of them. Tom Hanks is particularly pleasing in a truly Tom Hanks kind of way, whether it's his morally troubled Zachry of the far future, or the suspicious Dr Henry Goose travelling with the lawyer to San Francisco, he revels in the opportunity to play to many different characters, and it's no shock that he truly is one of the stars of the film. If nothing else, seeing him as an expletive-happy Irish gangster is something worth watching alone. Halle Berry is less notable throughout each, but she gives a very strong performance as the lead as 70s journalist Luisa Rey, at the very least a step towards making us forget Catwoman once more. Ben Whishaw gives a very impressive showing as Robert Frobisher, the musician seeking a chance for fame, battling to keep his bisexuality hidden at a time where it was more than unacceptable to be so in public. My pick of the bunch, is the magnificent Jim Broadbent, who takes the lead as publisher Timothy Cavendish. His story largely provides heart-warming comic relief, lampooning The Great Escape and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest as Cavendish makes a bid for freedom from the retirement home he has been made resident of. It is this story, for me, which somehow makes the whole movie tick, despite the fact that it is almost certainly the least important one to the overall climax of the film. Notable mentions must also go to Hugo Weaving and Jim Sturgess, who also provide pivotal characters in most of the stories, and also to Hugh Grant, whose slimy nuclear reactor manager is definitely loathsome, as well as his fantastically unexpected turn as the leader of a tribe of cannibals. Bizarre.

Despite as unfathomably confusing as the plot no doubt sounds from that fumbled attempt at a description, it flows very nicely together. This is more impressive than it seems, given that the narrative jumps from any one of six time periods at moments which can seem almost random at first, but always, always prove to be more pivotal to the plot than it first appears. It's a confusing yet wonderful story, and intricate in the detail to boot.

Visually speaking, the film's even more pleasing. It's a big budgeted science fiction film, and so you expect the use of special effects to be of the top order, and the scenes of New Seoul in particular are phenomenal. However, it is more an attention to the feel of the film through the use of (what I have assumed is) deliberately sketchy altering of the faces of the actors to fit with each of the stories. For example, there's not a single moment in the New Seoul story where we believe that Jim Sturgess is a Korean man, and not in fact, Jim Sturgess in peculiar make up. But this definitely adds to the charm of the movie, giving a more old-fashioned feel to an otherwise highly advanced use of cinema technology. I mean, I can't emphasise enough how much I enjoyed seeing Tom Hanks dressed up to look like a hardened Irish gangster. I...I just can't.

4/5  - Certainly not a perfect film, but extremely enjoyable and oddly touching. Guilty of trying too hard to hammer the message of "TOLERANCE IS AMAZING, RIGHT!?" home, but that's usually not too much of a glaring issue. Definitely worth watching.

Les Misérables

First and foremost, we had a massive break between posts as my previous laptop decided to essentially go full retard and set fire on me (quite literally), so I offer my apologies to anyone who for some reason got impatient, and also to my lap, which had a near death experience in the process.

And second, I'll put this out there right now: I'm not know as a prolific follower of musicals. My taste in such has stretched as far as South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut and Team America: World Police, so not exactly the higher end of the spectrum when it comes to the apparently cultured and sophisticated world of musical cinema. But when a film comes out with a promising cast, based on a phenomenally successful theatre production and a tidy budget to boot, I was more than willing to break my usual tastes and go see Tom Hooper's big screen version of Les Misérables.

The film tells the story of Jean Valjean, an ex-con who strives to turn his life around, taking on the daughter of a woman forced into prostitution after losing a job in his factory. Valjean's task is made no easier as he is persistently tracked by Javert, a dogged and much feared police inspector, who is also attempting to overseer and thwart an uprising of the angry youths of Paris. As the title suggests, this is not a particularly happy tale, more a collection of people whose lives are a little more riddled with strife than sparkles. Valjean is perpetually dealt a poor hand in life, Fantine loses her job, her daughter, her dignity and more, Enjolras is attempting to spark an uprising against inconceivable odds, and even Javert begins to question his usually unshakable professionalism. So yes, there aren't too many characters who come out of this one smelling of sunshine and roses.

You know those musicals where you get about 5-10 minutes of actual talking with a song thrown in for good measure in between those spells? Yeah, this film is most certainly not one of those. This is 158 minutes of almost constant singing. Now I'm definitely not a fan of that in almost every other example you could come up with, however, in this case it actually goes by very well. I'll not pretend that it doesn't feel a little cringey, because it does in places, there are some things you simply don't need to sing, and it does occasionally feel as if the characters would break out their falsetto just to announce that they're going for a pint of milk and a loaf of bread. But, in the bigger picture, the singing works very well, and certainly adds the right emotional connection to the physical actions going on underneath all that lung squeezing. Also, in terms of singing ability, I was pleasantly surprised by the talent displayed by a great deal of the cast, with Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway quite probably being the most notable of the bunch. Russell Crowe does a good job of it too, although he possibly seems to try and be too clever with it...though I naturally wouldn't be saying that to his face.

This will quite probably be the film that finally gives Hugh Jackman a bit of a more steady reputation as an actor. Whilst being a lead man for the best part of a decade, his best performances have all come whilst sporting pointy hair and having retractable claws, but his performance in Les Mis is a very solid one. Whilst not always the main focus of the story, he is the consistent backbone to it, and if it were not for him, we wouldn't be interested in the other subplots. Valjean is the piece holding the different characters together, and Jackman duly turns in a very powerful performance to keep us interested in what happens to everyone else, without him, this movie would almost certainly not succeed. Russell Crowe as Javert provides an intimidating authority figure for Valjean and the youths the rebel against, but he also adds a subtle softness to the character, and we're never quite sure whether his emotions are getting the better of him, which is also key to the whole film. So yes, Crowe is also very good here, but again...the singing. Then we have Anne Hathaway, playing the tragic Fantine, who goes from sweet and innocent to reluctant, depressed prostitute in a matter of screen minutes, but displays the concerns of years of suffering on her expression which immediately draws you in. Arguably one of the finest performances given by someone on screen for such a short period of time in recent years. Supporting roles from Amanda Seyfried as Cosette (daughter of Fantine) and Eddie Redmayne (Marius) do a job nicely, playing out the roles of lovers often separated by unfortunate circumstances, as do Sacha Baron Cohen (Thenardier) and Helena Bonham Carter (Madame Thenardier), although they do seem to be places exactly the same characters here as they did in Sweeney Todd, but with a slightly Frenched up Cockney accent. A special mention, I think, needs to go to Aaron Tveit, who portrays Enjolras, the leader of the uprising in Paris. He captures the very essence of the angry young man his character embodies, and is so very single-minded when it comes to revolution, that his emotion is purely drawn from how his plan is progressing; a very enjoyable and powerful performance.

Visually speaking, the film is no less than what you'd expect for a $61 million budget, but it really is spectacular. Right from the off, we're treated to massive scenes of enormous ships being towed by slaves, Parisian streets flooded with colour and people, and forests that seem to have fallen directly from the pages of Hans Christian Andersen's stories. The film uses colour particularly well too, with red and black being key throughout (as one of the songs even mentions), and it all adds up to a visually magnificent spectacle, to fit nicely alongside the vast amount of powerful (if occasionally over-the-top) singing.

4.5/5 - I know it's cheating to bring decimals into this, but there's logic behind it; this film is very good. I was happily pulled along through the whole story, and never once felt bored or uninterested, despite the length. I very much enjoyed the performances and the story itself. I even enjoyed pretty much every song in the thing. The only thing I can take away from it is the fact that the singing really is constant, and seems unnecessary in places, which made me cringe every so often. But don't let this take anything major away from the whole picture, it really is a sensationally good movie. Anyone put off by the fact that is a musical is missing out on one of the best films of the year. Definitely go see it.