109 - The Life of Pi (2012)

Honore de Balzac’s short story,A Passion in the Desert, begins at a menagerie viewing of a hyena where the narrator and a woman have a discussion about whether animals have passions which humans can appreciate. The narrator then relates a story of a 22-year old French soldier who finds himself alone in the desert. He falls asleep and awakens to a "vast ocean" of the desert, utterly alone. After a day adjusting to his environment, he falls asleep in a cave and awakens to find a dangerous female panther sleeping a couple of feet from him. Luckily for him she has just eaten. The two develop \a relationship and the soldier names the panther for his girl friend Mignonne. Eventually , the panther makes an innocent move which the soldier interprets as his attacking him and the man mortally wounds him with a knife. As he lays dying, the panther still looks at him without anger.  As part of the moral to the story, Balzac says that the desert is God without mankind.

The novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel (2001) and Ang Lee’s film based on the book share many similarities to Balzac's short story, but changes his desert to the Pacific Ocean and places a young man on a life boat and a make-shift raft with a ferocious Bengel tiger named Richard Parker (I'll let the film explain how he got his name). In the film, a writer who has come to interview the narrator tells the older Pi that he was told that the narrator’s story will help him see God.

Pi’s story begins in the Indian zoo where his father and mother help raise the animals. His father is a pragmatist; his mother is more spiritual. From his mother Pi develops an interest in religions of all kinds and looks for God's revelations everywhere. His father tells him that when he looks into an animal's eyes, all he is seeing is himself. He catches Pi trying to feed their man-eater Richard Parker and he teaches Pi a brutal lesson about how animals cannot be trusted. 

When his father is forced to sell the zoo and transport the animals to the Americas, the family ends up on a Japanese ship with a vicious cook (Gerald Depardeau in a cameo appearance). When storm hits, Pi is saved, along with a wounded zebra, a hyena, a female organatan, and the tiger. It is at this point that story really begins.

Each of the ages of Pi are well acted, but Suraj Sharma as the "boat" Pi is amazingly nuanced in his performance. 

Ang’s film is magical. According to The Making of Life of Pi: A Film, a Journey by Jean-Christophe Castelli, Lee planned from the beginning to use the 3D medium. For me, it has moments that transcend most other 3D films I’ve seen. Rather than using extreme 3D throughout, the effect is toned down until needed for special moments. For example, while Richard Parker and Pi are alone, Pi notices luminous plankton surrounding the boat and his makeshift raft. A giant whale, feeding off plankton, breeches the surface and rises majestically up into the sky. The sight is truly awe-inspiring. At another point, as elder Pi tells how he was named after the clearest swimming pool in France, we see his uncle swim across the screen in totally clear water with clouds in the distance.

The most magical thing about the film is Richard Parker, the CGI tiger based on a real tiger named King. I intentionally didn’t tell my viewing companions about the CGI effects until after the film. They were amazed since there was never a false moment when they doubted that what they were seeing was the actions of a living tiger.

It is also hard to believe that the storm which sets the plot in motion and the sinking of the ship are also CGI moments. The image of Pi underwater watching the lit boat sinking deep into the Pacific is another haunting image I won’t forget.

[SPOILER ALERT] In the film, Pi ends up telling the writer two stories. The first one is of his adventures in the boat with the animals I mentioned above.  The hyena kills the zebra and the orangatan, but he is finally killed by Richard Parker. Pi is able to train King to accept him by using starvation techniques.  A school of flying fish and large tuna become a major event. And the climax of Pi's story revolves around a floating island filled with meerkats and banyan trees. By the time they near Mexico, Pi is able to stroke Richard Parker's head. When they reach Mexico, Richard Parker goes into the jungle without turning around and even acknowledging Pi. Elder Pi was in tears as he described it, and so was I.

When elder Pi finishes his story, the men taking his history, sent to find out why the ship sank, find his story too unbelievable. So Pi tells a second much darker story in which another sailor with a broken leg, the cook, his mother and himself end up stranded in the boat. The cook kills the sailor and eventually his mother to use for bait to catch fish. For the second story to be true, all we saw was only metaphor. The second story, like his father’s view of the world, is cruel and unrelenting and Pi himself was Richard Parker. His father's God is an angry God. The second story is told without visual embellishments and none of the wonder and religion found in the first. 

Author Martel has said that when people ask which story is to be taken as true, he refuses to answer. It is up to each person to make that decision for themselves and then live their life with that viewpoint. Which story does the film favor? One has only to look at the magical views Lee creates. The world can be filled with fantastic animals which show us the God that exists all around us.

The Life of Pi (2012) *****

107/108 - Anna Karenina (2012) & Anna Karenina (1948)

Director Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina is one of the most sumptuous and glorious films to look at in the last few years. Kiera Knightley is a beautiful Anna, swathed in silks and bustles and furs, beautiful jewelry,  lavish colors and surrounded by rich sets. Says costume designer, Jacqueline Durran, "Anna's thematic scheme of color is dark, particularly with the red she wears at the beginning in the Karenin home. What she wears becomes somewhat lighter in tone when she becomes enraptured with Vronsky, before returning to the darker hues as  she becomes anxious and paranoid that his affections towards her have waned."

Screenwriter Thomas Stoppard says, "Much of the action takes place in a large, derelict 19th century Russian theatre--not in the sense of 'onstage  only, but often in different parts of the theatre, e.g, the auditorium, the wings, backstage, the under-stage, the fly-tower, etc. A bold stroke. Perhaps my favorite moment onscreen is when Anna, leaving Oblonsky's house, and Levin, walking away from meeting his brotther in town, cross paths on the stage. The back of the stage opens to reveal the snowy landscape Levin is going home to, and the two worlds elide for a moment before they separate."

The approach is unique and challenging. Anna lives in a world where everyone assumes roles, as in a theatre, and when she is in that world, the story is told in a theatrical formal presentation.

All the well-known moments occur in that theatre:  Stiva Oblonsky (Matthew Macfadyen) almost losing his wife;  Anna (Knightley) arriving on the train with Countess Vronsky (Olivia Williams) and meeting her future lover, Alexei Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), the ball where Anna captures and is captured by Vronsky, her home in Moscow, the horse-race, the opera where she is publically embarrassed.

But the story of Anna’s torrid adulterous relationship is contrasted with the story of 18 year old Kitty Shcherbatsky (Alicia Vikander) who is devastated by Vronsky’s neglect and eventually finds true love with Tolstoy stand-in Kostya Levin (Domhnall Gleeson) who deserts the city to live among the peasants at his estate Pokrobskoe. Only when the actors break free from the constraints of the city are we given real vistas of the world.  The theatre is stifling after awhile; the country is real freedom we can feel.

Jude Law actually plays a complex Alexei Karenin (Anna’s husband) who proclaims he is above jealousy but eventually is moved to indignation and vengence. He allows us to have pity and sympathy for a fairly unsympathetic character.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Vronsky is called on to be handsome, which he is. His deep blue eyes offset stunningly his blonde good looks. His eyes often match the blue of his uniform and Anna’s costume. As Anna sinks deeper and deeper into the jealousy of her love affair, he begins to allow us to see a more sympathetic side.

Kiera Knightley is gloriously costumed and looks the part, but her performance is not as strong as the others. As she sinks deeper into jealousy and morphine addiction, she becomes more tiresome than tragic.

The script by Tom Stoppard is an interesting contrast to the 1948 film.

Anna Karenina (2012) ****

Vivien Leigh made Anna Karenina for Alexander Korda in 1948. Like Wright’s film, director Julien Duvivier’s production had lavish costumes (this time by Cecil Beaton), with sumptuous fabrics, furs and amazing necklaces. Leigh was at her most beautiful, having just recovered from a bout of tuberculosis. This is one of the times that color would have enhanced the entire look.

The script by French playwright Jean Anouilh (author of such wonderful works as The Lark; Becket, or the Honor of God; Antigone), Guy Morgan, and Julien Duvivier changes much of Tolstoy’s work. Among other things, Annie (the love child of Anna and Vronsky) dies with a sense of moral censorship.  The film follows the two to Venice. Lavish and vast sets of Russian palaces loaded with period detail, designed by Andrej Andrejew, offer the viewer much to concentrate on.  

It is interesting to compare the role of Stefan Oblonsky in these two films. Here Hugh Dempster is pretty much an oaf; in Wright’s film, Macfadyen, is personable and charming. A very young Sally Ann Howes plays Kitty. Most of the performances are high film acting without much attempt at today’s realism.

Anna with Kitty at the ball.
The star jewels in her hair were probably inspired
by pictures of Empress Elizabeth of Austria.

Ralph Richardson (in the character of the husband who is 20 years older than Anna) gives little in his performance with which to sympathize. He seems in some ways to be practicing his Dr. Sloper from The Heiress (1949).

Leigh’s lover, Kieron Moore, fails to move beyond just the looks of his part. I didn’t really find him particularly charming nor outstandingly beautiful. Because of the moral nature of the film, the passion of the two adulterers seemed very chaste and was generally just talked about. The film ends with Anna’s suicide, one of the most famous of literature, as the climax.

In all, Leigh is lovely to look at, but the script fails to ignite.

Anna Karenina (1948) ****
(part of the Criterion Collection on Hulu Plus)

106 - Lincoln (2012)

Stephen Spielberg’s Lincoln begins in 1865 with two African American Union soldiers describing to Lincoln the atrocities their men endured at the hands of the Southern armies. Two white soldiers join them and begin quoting Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. One of the African Americans finishes the address. That opening scene gives us a clear view of the people’s view of the President and allows us a chance to like Lincoln.

Tony Kushner’s screenplay is based on a part of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. The film focuses on Lincoln’s maneuverings to get the Thirteenth Amendment passed in a contentious Congress, which feels surprisingly present-day. Reverse the political titles of Democrat and Republicans, and one could see the film as commentary on this past election.

The care for historical accuracy and casting of people who look remarkably like their historical counterparts is just one of the joys of the production. The look of the film is not often as rich as Robert Redford’s The Conspirator (2010), but the human drama and emotion is much more engrossing and heart-felt. Redford delighted in long-shot views of the unfinished Washington monument and the vistas of the raw capitol. Spielberg only has a couple matte shots. His palette is more like painted etchings, with rich shadows and chiaroscuro. Joanna Johnston’s costume designs presents lush and authentic looking clothing which mirror the worn suits of Lincoln contrasted with the elaborate, often Victorian gaudy dresses of his wife.  More on Johnston’s costumes can be seen here.

Rick Carter’s production design gives sets which capture the dark and smoky feel of the Lincoln White House (many residents complain about the small feel of the residence) and the chambers of Congress where much of dramatic action of the story takes place.

The most outstanding aspects of this production are the performances of an incredible Daniel Day-Lewis, who feels a shoe-in for an Academy Award nomination, and a powerful performance by Sally Field as the neurotic and loving Mary Todd Lincoln. Their major confrontation scene over the loss of their son Willie and Mary’s perceived danger to her eldest son, Robert, moved me to tears for both actors. With beautifully nuanced performances, I found myself believing the actors as their characters and not just as wax figures who kind of look the part but lack the humanity of the people. These are people I can feel for and with.

In the small part of Robert Lincoln, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has a very moving scene with his father where he tries to assert his need for independence to serve his country in spite of being the president’s son.

Other outstanding performances were given by David Strathairn (William Seward), James Spader (Bilbo), Hal Holbrook (Blair), Tommy Lee Jones (Thaddeus Stevens, who has more at stake in the amendment passing than we know), and Lee Pace (Wood).

In a quiet scene between Lincoln and his two secretaries, John Hay (Joseph Cross) and John Nicolay (Jeremy Strong), Lewis captures the homespun wisdom of Lincoln. At the end of the scene as Lincoln leaves, Hay stands to honor the man—and I wanted to stand also.

I must admit this and many scenes moved me to tears of both empathy and joy.

[Minor spoiler] An interesting playwrite/director decision comes near the end. We assume we will see Booth and the tragedy at Ford’s Theatre. Instead, we are taken to Tad’s enjoying Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp at Grover’s Theater when the play is stopped and the president’s assassination is announced.

The film was emotionally exhausting, but one that shows the power of Spielberg at his best.

Lincoln (2012) *****

105 - Skyfall: The IMAX Experience (2012)

From the outset let me stress, Skyfall is my favorite James Bond film. I have seen all of them and although I am a great fan of the early Sean Connery films, I have always felt that Daniel Craig came closer to the Bond I envisioned when reading the books. Connery feels a little too perfect, never rumpled, never harmed—even when he found himself in deadly situations. Craig’s sense of physicality with the part makes him a much more believable action hero. Here is a Bond who can be injured and hurt. Craig’s first turn as Bond in Casino Royale seemed an auspicious start (2006), but the second film, Quantum of Solace (2008) felt tired and rather unimaginative, so although I was anxious to see the film, I was also prepared to be disappointed.

I wasn’t disappointed.

The opening chase at the beginning of Skyfall follows Bond chasing his assassin through a market, down streets, across rooftops, via motorcycles [which I must admit felt a little like déjà vu from the major chase in The Bourne Legacy (2012)]. The ending of the chase, however, with Bond and his nemesis fighting on the moving train, and Bond manipulating the CAT shovel to stop the train from pulling apart, put me on the edge of my seat. When M demands his colleague shoot at him, the adrenaline was fully pumping.  I saw the film on a 6-story high and wide IMAX theatre screen and watching Bond plunge 6 stories in high detail was an incredible experience. [If you can see the film on IMAX, do it… it is worth the money and the experience.] 

             `

As Bond appears to die in his fall, we pick up one of the best title sequences since the work of Saul Bass on such pictures as Vertigo or Man with the Golden Arm or Psycho. The only thing you need to know about the title sequence is that it is made of all the important symbols from the film. It does not tell the story of the film as much as do theme and variation of the main images.

I have tried to figure out why we are all so attracted to the Bond character. One of my FB friends, a former student of mine, suggests “Why wouldn’t we be? He’s handsome, he drives great cars, he beds beautiful women, and he always defeats the bad guy.”

I have been reading Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Made Us Human. He talks about how we dream and stresses that the major of our dreamtime is spent in anxiety resolution—we are chased, we run, people put us in peril. He quotes J. Allan Hobson who says “Fight or flight is the rule in dreaming consciousness, and it goes on and on, night after night, with all too rare respites in the glorious lull of fictive elation.” Does perhaps Bond become our surrogate, constantly pursued or having to fight, bedding beautiful women without fear of commitment since we know, of course, that by the last reel they will not be around to cloud his bedding another woman in the next film, offering us unique technology which gives us that “ah-ha” moment when we could be stunned and amused. We get great effects with humor and often tongue-in-cheek wit. Bond has generally functioned without a back-story. We know the kind of car he likes driving, what he thinks of M, what his preference for martini preparation is, but generally there is little more. Where does he come from? How was he raised? Does he have any opinions about anything? In the first Craig-Bond film we had Bond falling love, losing the woman and eventually mourning her loss. As the Bond film ends, the nightmare resolves itself and we are able to leave having experienced our dream fantasies without feeling ourselves in peril.

Just as the Batman of the 1960s has become a brooding dark character, the suave unflappable Bond has become someone who can wear a great suit but suffers and must face the dark side of his life. He has become the image which reflects our times.

Bond says he is all about Resurrection. The franchise in the hands of Daniel Craig is alive and well.

Skyfall (2012) *****

104 - The Magic of Belle Isle (2012)

At 74, Morgan Freeman automatically brings a lot of gravitas to the roles he plays. The qualities he seems to personify include intellect, wisdom, humor. One thing Freeman generally doesn't get to play is a romantic lead.

In The Magic of Belle Isle, as Monty Wildhorn, Freeman has to stretch our credibility while playing an alcoholic irascible wheel-chair-bound author of American westerns. We know from his other roles that he has a soft chocolate center inside his hard shell and know that by the end of the film he (and we) will find it.

Monty, a depressed widower, has given up writing when he moves to a summer home by a lake in upstate New York beside divorced pretty blonde mother of three, Charlotte O’Neill (Virginia Madsen). Charlotte’s daughters seem are stereotypical: Willow, the pouty teen; Finn, a precocious 9-year-old who wants to learn to tell stories, and Flora, the youngest sister who still loves to be read to by her mother. 

Having given you the situation, I’m pretty sure you can see where this gentle movie is heading: Monty becomes the loving, caring person we know he is. Charlotte finds in him the caring companion she seeks. Willow finally sees life through her mother’s eyes and reaches out to her. Tomboy Finn learns to see things that aren’t there and create the stories with the imagination she doesn’t know she has. Flora finds a father figure who actually cares about her. 

The playwrights (Guy Thomas, Rob Reiner, and Andrew Scheinman) seem to really like their characters, and as we would expect, the town (and film) are filled with characters that we can learn to appreciate. Although the situations are pretty predictable, we can leisurely enjoy the character studies director Reiner presents. [Spoiler Alert] The surprise of the film is the romance that develops between Freeman and Madsen, moreso because of the age differences than the racial differences. The two have enough charisma that we care about them and their future. In that way, the ending becomes a surprise because it allows us to have the romantic ending we think should be but which more “realistic” directors might disdain. 

I really enjoyed the film and the various characters. As Finn, Emma Fuhrmann gives a charming performance. The interaction between her and Freeman is one of the fun things about the production. Once again by the end, however, it is Freeman I came to see... and once again he shows himself one of our Living National Treasures.

The Magic of Belle Isle (2012) ****

103 - Gosford Park (2001)

Since the 1967 26-episode BBC production of The Forsyte Saga, I have found myself drawn to Anglophile drawing room drama. In fact English drama became one of the staples of my Sunday evening with Masterpiece Theatre. Through 1971-1975’s Upstairs Downstairs, created by Jean Marsh, Eileen Atkins, John Hawkesworth and John Whitney, with 68-episods introduced much of America to the lives of those serving and those being served.  The more recent fascination with the series Downton Abbey (co-created by Julian Fellowes and Gareth Neame) spurred me to watch again the 2001 Robert Altman/Julian Fellowes masterpiece, Gosford Park.

Watching the film is like visiting a comfortable old friend’s country home for a weekend while being entertained with period details and an Agatha Christie-style story. 

Director Robert Altman’s characteristic large ensemble casts, well developed characters, overlapping dialogue and improvisation are all set in 1932 with superb production values. 

The film begins with the arrival at Gosford Park of Constance, Countess of Trentham (a glorious Maggie Smith trying out her Countess of Grantham character in fine ironic fashion) and her lady’s maid, Mary Maceachran (mousey Kelly Macdonald), who becomes one of the bridge characters. On the road, they encounter actor Ivor Novello (Jeremy Northam), American film producer Morris Weissman (Bob Balaban) and Weissman’s valet, Henry Denton (Ryan Phillippe). Novello was a real actor from the 1930s, having appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger. At the house they are welcomed by Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon), Lady Sylvia McCordle (Kristin Scott Thomas) and their mousey daughter Isobel (Camilla Rutherford). Other house guests (or should we say suspects?) include Lady Sylvia’s sisters and their spouses (Geraldine Sommerville, Natasha Wightman, Charles Dance, and Tom Hollander),  Freddie Nesbitt (James Wilby) and his formerly rich wife (Claudie Blakely) and Isobel’s suitor, Lord Rupert Standish (Laurence Fox) and his friend Jeremy Blond (Trent Ford).

Almost all the guests and many of the servants have secrets of their own, some of which are revealed and relevant to the plot, others just red herrings to keep us guessing. 

The downstairs servants includes Alan Bates, Helen Mirren, Eileen Atkins, Derek Jacobi.

Before the weekend is done, McCordle is wounded by a stray bullet, cuts off many of the guests to his money, and then is found dead. A bumbling and unobservant Inspector Thomas (Stephen Fry) and his trusty Constable Dexter (Ron Webster) arrive to discover that McCordle had been poisoned AND stabbed.  

One of the points of the film is that the servants are everywhere and see everything. (In fact, in almost every scene there is a servant.) Just like the silent and obiquitous servants, Altman’s camera moves constantly. The group scenes were shot with two cameras so that the actors wouldn’t play to one camera. He felt it made the acting more natural. To help with the overlapping dialogue, Altman gave each of the actors a microphone so boom mikes were not used. (I did find turning on the captions helped in sorting out the dialogue and gave me many lines I would have missed.)

Julian Fellowes’ script is rich in period detail of country manor life both upstairs and downstairs. The idea that the people’s servants would be addressed by their employer’s name was interesting. Or having the Countess writing thank-you notes and leaving tips for each of the servants was a detail I had not considered.

The film holds up remarkably well, Even knowing the outcome does not hurt the appreciation of how we learn what we do. It’s a great film, with first rate acting, first rate script, and first rate directing.

If you are a Downton Abbey fan, see it for Maggie. You won't be disappointed.

Gosford Park (2001) *****

102 - The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950)

This film noir mystery, directed by Felix E. Feist, was produced by Jack M. Warner for Twentieth Century-Fox in 1950. It stars Lee J. Cobb, John Dall, and Jane Wyatt. Cobb had just scored a triumph as Willy Loman on Broadway in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949). Dall had scored with Hitchcock’s Rope (1948). Wyatt had done a lot of television and, for those of us of a certain age, found her niche as our favorite television mother in Father Knows Best in 1954.

In the film, wealthy San Francisco heiress Lois Frazer (Wyatt) has a husband who wants her dead. He has a new gun stashed away in his closet; and after telling her he is flying out of town, he has it set-up so he can get back in the house, use the gun and kill his wife. He seems unaware that Lois has a boyfriend, upright policeman, Lt. Ed Cullen (Cobb). She calls him over and in a set-up that foreshadows Agatha Christie’s play Dial M for Murder (1952), he breaks in, tries to kill his wife but is shot by his wife instead. To protect Lois, Cullen takes the body to the airport and leaves it lying in the parking lot, trying to make it appear he had been robbed and murdered. Unfortunately a couple see Cullen, his car, and the body.

Cullen’s younger brother, Andy (John Dall), is joining his brother as a detective and the murder of the man in the airport parking lot becomes his first case.  As the film progresses, Andy begins unraveling the lies that his brother has constructed.

Part of the fun of the movie for me are the black and white scenes shot on location in San Francisco, echoing the color location work of Hitchcock in Vertigo (1958). I was particularly pleased with the climatic episode at the end of the film which takes place inside Fort Point which Hitchcock lovers will recognize as the building at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge where Kim Novak goes to jump into the Bay and be rescued by Jimmy Stewart. The building works wonderfully with film noir and has arch after arch of shadows. One shot especially evokes one Hitchcock would have enjoyed of Andy walking through several rooms from light to shadow over and over.

The sets for the Frazer home are glamorous and memorable (who wouldn’t like a closet door which pivots open with all the clothes and hangers brought to the front). Another memorable setting is the artist studio apartment of Andy and his new wife Janet (Lisa Howard). As can be seen in a still from the movie, it has a great vertical window wall and steep stairway, framed with a pictures and a screen. It reminds me some of the artist’s studio in Hitchcock’s Rear Window.

The acting in the film is not particularly memorable, especially considering the power of Cobb in some of his other roles. Wyatt is surprisingly unexpressive and doesn’t register a lot of emotion even in tense situations. But the power of the film is its story, which as film noir shows us that bad women can make good men do anything.

As the guilty couple flee the cops, they end up at Fort Point,
same location Hitchcock used in Vertigo.

The film is free to watch on YouTube and through the link below. The set-up is good and the ending has suspense.

The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950) ****

101 - Cloud Atlas (2012)

Brilliant, challenging, confusing, awesome, exciting, thought-provoking.  Cloud Atlas is one of this year’s best. A masterpiece.

The film plays with the idea that all lives are connected and the action of one can ripple across time like pebbles in water. Love acts as a bridge between lives, and death is only (as one character says) “stepping through one door” to another existence.  Plots and events in one story are mirrored and expanded on in another, so that like an elaborate quilt the story emerges with each new piece.

In the film, we are told that all actions, both bad and good, affect the fabric of the lives we live with others in past, present and future.  I knew beforehand that there were essentially six different stories woven together. Ranging from 1849 to 1936, 1973, 2012, 2144, and “106 winters after the Fall” (2321), the film uses the same often brilliant ensemble actors playing both male and female characters. The stories vary in tone. I was not sure how having six different stories would be explained to the audience. In effect, there was no explanation. The six stories are just told, cutting from one to the other--it assumes the audience is bright enough to figure it out. And we do.

For me the most touching and powerful is the one which takes place in Neo Seoul. Bae Donna as Sonmi-451, a stunningly beautiful server/slave, learns from Jim Sturgess as Hae-Joo Chang the power of love. She learns that the actions of one individual can change  the history of the world. Sonmi-451’s message is mirrored in the poignant male-male love story of Robert Frobisher (Ben Whishaw) and Rufus Sixsmith (James D’Arcy) as two men stay connected in spite of separation.

Tom Hanks’ characters move from a killer intent only on stealing another’s gold to a non-committed family man who learns to protect all he cherishes.

With truly outstanding make-up, characters often play against their type and women play men, men play women, African-Americans and Asians play Caucasions. It becomes a surprise at the end to see the extensive variety of roles the lead actors play.

This is one of the few films I can think of that makes me want to study the script (by Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, and Andy Wachowski), then read  David Mitchell’s novel of the same name, and finally see the film again. I know already that I will see this film more than once, just as I have seen the Wachowski’s The Matrix several times.

I laughed, I cried, I felt exhilarated, and then I joined the other moviegoers in applauding both before the credits and after. As I stood up to leave, I looked at the man at the end of my row who looked at me, smiled and echoed my thoughts with one word, “Brilliant.”

The musical score by Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil becomes an experience unto itself.

See this before it leaves the big screen.

Cloud Atlas ***** (2012)