POSTMODERN ELEMENTS OF CLOUD ATLAS

Hello guys, 

I decided to write both English and Turkish in my blog like on my Instagram. I choose to write about a movie. Both I want to improve my English during summer and to improve my writing skills. I hope you will understand and like the essay. It is really a good one, you can watch it after reading my essay. 

Here we go!

Cloud Atlas (2012) is one of the interesting postmodern movies. It is composed of 5 different lives, ages, times and places.  These stories are told by an old man to his grandchildren.  In the movie, we see that quantum theory through different lives but the same people. In each age, all of the characters are same but they have different personal characteristics.  These show that pomo’s some elements like changeability, continuity, and process.  Their lives always proceed through different directions in each encounter and intersections like in quantum theory.  At the beginning of the story, we see different parts of each story and it creates ambiguity, indeterminacy.  Also, on Timothy’s part, he talks to audiences by saying that movie can be complicated but you can figure it out, this shows that the movie is self-reflexive. 

First of all, all of the characters are anarchist and no one let anyone abuse them. For example; in 1849, Pacific Islands scenes, there is a Mr. Ewing and he is a lawyer who has to get a paper from Pacific Island. Anyway, when he goes back to hometown, San Francisco, he gets ill and the captain of a ship tries to kill him but a black slave survives him. At the end when he reaches home, he burns the agreement and he tells his father-in-law that they will go to East and join the Abolitionist Movement. Of course, his father-in-law rejects it and says that there is a natural order and if you try to change that, you will have an unfortunate life.  In that part, Mr. Ewing resists to injustice behaviors, slavery, dependency, and the current system. Another example of being anarchist is in 2012 London scenes, there is an old man called Timothy and he is fallen into a trap by his brother and get into old age asylum. He and his friends try to escape from there and at the end, they play a game to escape, finally, they escape. They go to a bar and drink beer and after a while manager of asylum and supporters come to bar and Mr. Meek who is a silence character like his name-irony- rebels against them and provokes all people in the bar and they attack these malevolent people. These old people also resist rules to get their freedom and human rights back.

This movie has a Chinese-box world, all of them intertwine and we can see that previous life in current life. This shows that each lifetime connects with each other from the past to the future and each character believes that they live in another life in another age. For example, Mr. Ewing who lives in 1849 writes a diary and Robert Frobisher who lives in 1936, Cambridge finds it. Robert Frobisher composes a melody called Atlas Cloud Sextet and he emphasizes that he composes this melody by thinking about encountering at different ages and times. This melody is found in 1973, San Francisco by Louisa Rey. In this age, there is a man from the past, Rufus Sixsmith who is the lover of Robert Frobisher. They are gay and it shows that there is always alternative to middle-class marriage model there are multiple identities and polymorphic sexuality. As well as this, there is also an alteration in woman roles which are being a sheep rather than a hunter. In this time period, Louisa searches for an important unfairness and due to this Mr. Sixsmith dies and almost she dies but she takes power in her hands and she hunts the “hunter”, she does not wait to be survived by a man.

Another dominant theme is about technology and being against technology. In 2144 Neo Soul, there is a system based on servant-consumer relationship, it is like pomo slavery. There are clones and pure people. Pure people control them and abuse them and clones have some specific programs which they cannot object what they expose. They cannot resist rules or government, or else they can be terminated by authorized people. In this period, there is high technology and cyborg mixing which means that mixture of, human machine and electronic. Sonmi is one of the clones and she at the end resists to technology when she sees the brutality against clones. They trick clones that they find peace when getting twelve stars but they terminate them and recycle them as soups, briefly clones eat themselves. One clone has many duplicates but each has a different personality and it shows that multiplicity of identities. Sonmi provokes people against this brutality and she revolts the rules by making love with a pure person who survives her. Also in that period, we see that Timothy’s movie called The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish, traces of past continues.

The last part is in 106 winters after the collapse, Hawaii, there is no specific time frame and it creates ambiguity because we cannot know when it happens. The story is more mythical than the others. In the story, there is high technology but it comes with a woman from another world to save her people.  There is a goddess according to Zachry and she actually is not a goddess, she is Sonmi who lives in Neo Soul 2144.  There is also imagery creature in Zachary’s mind, it reveals when Zachry fears or worries and creature always dissuades him and leads to bad situations. In the end, they find the devil’s inn and the woman who tries to survive her people succeeds and Zachry sees the goddess and the imaginary character has gone. Yet, in the village, there is a massacre by cannibals and the only survivor is Catkin, his daughter. Before these situations, prophet mentions about all of these and he remembers each of them through an oracle.  Then, Zachry and Catkin navigate with a high technological ship. This part shows that there is the mixture of cultures and mixture of supernatural items and real things.

Briefly, the movie is a chain of endless signifiers and each character, situation connects each other from past to future. All of the characters search for justice and peace; we see that in each story notion of justice and peace changes, there are multiple truths in every age and every place. This movie is the combination of fragments of different sexes, various cultures, various times and places. In each section has the same characters but different personalities and in some stories, they can die at the end. At the end of the story, we understand that the storyteller and his wife are Zachry and the woman who comes to the village.