Movie Review, Last Thoughts

Movie Review:
          Since I ran out of ideas large enough to devote a post to, I decided to check out the 2012 movie version from the library.  My overall opinion of it: not the worst, but definitely not something I would recommend.  The story switching annoyed me in the book, and the fast cuts in the movie, which were far more frequent than in the book, led to it feeling disjointed.  While I understand that it's not really possible to space out the stories in a movie the same way it was done in the book, the movie's structure did not work for me.  The quick five second scenes going from story to story may have emphasized how they are all connected, but in the end I felt like the movie was a mush of all the stories instead of six distinct ones.  Also, that feeling of confusion would be multiplied for someone thrown into David Mitchell's worlds without the same context I have after reading the book.  The downside of having read the book so recently is that I'm extra sensitive and opposed to any deviations in plot or even dialog.  I agree with cuts like excluding Eva (I don't want the movie to be seventeen hours long, after all), but "An Orison of Sonmi-451" was destroyed (the storyline overhaul completely fails to illustrate the depth of corruption and inhumanity in the government and Sonmi's true sacrifice) and "Half Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery" badly hurt by oversimplification.  Grudgingly, though,  I admit the major themes, interconnectivity/reincarnation, corruption, and slavery, are all visited and explained in some degree.  While I don't agree with all the director's stylistic choices (inevitable when an already dense 500 page book is condensed into a movie format) the basic idea and concept behind the book remains intact, a fair accomplishment with a book as multi-faceted as Cloud Atlas.  In short, I would compare the movie to a SparkNotes summary: it has the key characters and ideas, but is prone to misinterpretations and lacks the beauty and complexity of the original work.

Last Thoughts:
          I know that in my last post I said the cycle and continuity of time was the meaning of the work as a whole.  But I can't help second guessing myself.  The blurb headlining the back cover says "EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED,"  and this seems just as likely a meaning.  The whole book is trying to show how six stories, set in different times and locations, all make sense together.  Timothy Cavendish said "You would think a place the size of England could easily hold all the happenings in one humble lifetime without much overlap- I mean, it's not ruddy Luxembourg we live in- but no, we cross, crisscross, and recross our old tracks like figure skaters"(Mitchell 163).  Then Luisa Rey says "It's a small world. It keeps recrossing itself" (Mitchell 418).  If two characters say such similar lines about their own lives, imagine how often souls recross over time.  Both theories, connectivity and the time cycle, are supportable, so my new theory is a double meaning as a whole.
          One of the key stylistic/structural elements of Cloud Atlas is that each story is cut short and its document reviewed in the next story in the first half of the book, and each story in ends by beginning the second half of the next story.  For the most part this works well, but the structure prevents characters  from commenting on the document from the previous story.  Even in the first half of the book, where each character is shown reading or seeing the document from the past, the extent of the commentary is Frobisher saying Dr. Goose is poisoning Adam Ewing and Luisa Rey relating Frobisher's letters to memories.  I think leaving out what characters think of each other across time is a missed opportunity; it would offer insight into the different character's perspectives and better show connections over time.  Maybe David Mitchell consciously sacrificed this for the book's overall structure, but I still find it odd that characters have no real reactions to the actual content of the surviving documents.
          In watching the movie, I realized that Sonmi-451's very name could be an important allusion I had skipped over.  Sonmi, minus the "i" on the end, sounds a lot like Psalm.  Psalms chapter 45 verse one reads, depending on the version, something like "My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer."  Clearly Sonmi is motivated by "noble theme[s]" like freedom for fabricants, and her Declarations, though mostly undescribed, are a work of higher thinking.  As for the king, I think he might be society or individual people that she is trying to reach with her message of freedom.  Then again, maybe I'm wrong with this allusion in the first place.  But if I'm right, it stands to reason that Yonna-939's name could have a hidden meaning as well.  The Book of Jonah sounds the most like Yoona of all the biblical books (Psalms and Jonah are both in the Old Testament, and I don't know if that's important, but it shows that they are somehow connected).  The Book of Jonah is only a few pages long, and there is no chapter 9.  But looking at the book as a whole, Jonah is a minor prophet who initially resists God's calling, repents and carries out his mission, and later regrets it and is punished by God.   Yoona is like a minor prophet in her partially-ascended status and the example she set for Sonmi, and she does end up dying.   Yoona's "God" is really Papa Song.  Fabricants obey their Catechisms for behavior, like the Ten Commandments, they sing songs about him (like hymns), he is referred to as "our beloved Logoman," and they attend his Sermons, which collectively turn Papa Song into a God-like figure, at least to the fabricants (Mitchell 185).  After recognizing this, you can see that Yoona's story mirrors Jonah's in how she is a loyal servant of God, but begins to question him, and after being looked at by a corp medic she "performed as genomed" (comparable to Jonah's repentance) (Mitchell 190).  She continues to work, yet Yoona-939 still does not buy into Papa Song's Catechims and her assigned role in life, so she attempts to escape but is killed by Unanimity.  As for the purpose of the allusion, I think it highlights how Sonmi is humble, elevates Yoona to someone who questions a god, and reinforces the idea that Unanimity and social structures are omnipotent.