The Cloud Atlas

Over the Easter weekend I watched a really thought provoking movie called "The Cloud Atlas". It was actually released in 2012 but I somehow never heard of it. Strange because it was actually one of the best movies I've seen recently. It's very "Inception" like and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Apparently a 10 minute standing ovation followed the movie... I can understand why...

Basically, "the Cloud Atlas" is musical composition that is supposed to represent people meeting over and over in different lives. Its "official" summary is "An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution". There're several scenarios going on simultaneously in the movie that take place in the past or the future. However, all of the characters are somehow linked. For example there is a lawyer who sailed to Africa and wrote a diary, so then a musician read this diary and composed the Cloud Atlas sextet. Then another women listened to the composition and so forth…

None of the characters/ souls actually know that they are related or are the same soul but some have similar stories. For example, the lawyer who goes to Africa is supposed to get a contract that has something to do with slaves. However, he ends up taking one of the slaves as a stove away on his sail back. In the end he becomes part of an anti-slave movement. Then that character is reborn as a Korean commander and revolutionary good 400 years later. This time the slaves are these women servers who are "fabricated". As you can tell, the soul of this character does very similar things although in the case of the lawyer he actually doesn't know what he's doing and one of the slaves hides in his room without him knowing. However, in the second life he consciously makes the choice to rescue one of the slaves. The past life has shaped his future life...

 

 I find this quote to be fascinating and I can easily how it relates to my own life. We all create ripples in other people's life whether these are positive or negative. 

Once upon a time,  a surgeon did an operation on me that saved my life. Two months later he died but I got a chance to live.

Once upon a time, I met a friend who steered me in the right direction. I attribute a large portion of where I am today to her.

Once upon a time, a professor took me into his lab and a graduate student took the time to mentor me. The opportunity opened many doors for me carrier-wise.

One day, I will make a scientific discovery that will better someone's life.

We are all interconnected. We depend on each other and we influence other people's lives greater then we think. 

I highly recommend that you watch this movie as it is a true masterpiece. I'm not quite sure why it isn't well known but then again most people watch "light" movies.

PS: The crazy thing about this movie is that the actors play about 6 characters each (the make up team was amazing) so if you do watch the movie keep an eye out for that :P