“Cloud Atlas” Review

HOLY SHIT! OMG! I LAUGHED! I CRIED! I HAD MY HEART BROKEN! I SAW THE LIGHT!

EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU READING THIS BLOG- GO AND WATCH “CLOUD ATLAS”…
…OR BETTER YET, GO READ IT!

Goodness, by everything true and good, you MUST see this film.

It. Is. Amazing. Awe-inspiring. Inspirational. Noble. Everything that a good book to movie (and fabulous movie at that) should be!

If you don’t like thinking, then this movie isn’t for you, but if you really enjoy a brain teaser, something that makes you see the world in a new way, experience everything around you through new eyes- then it is absolutely imperative that you see this film.

Oh dear sweet, sweet jesus, I normally don’t know how to feel about Jim Sturgess… generally I don’t like his looks but love his characters. I FUCKING LOVE HIS STORY IN “CLOUD ATLAS” I SWEAR TO WHATEVER IS OUT THERE THAT STURGESS’ PART IN “CLOUD ATLAS” MADE MY HEART STOP. As in, every freaking time he came on screen, my heart rate would accelerate. I haven’t had so many feels in a movie since “Les Mis” and fair’s fair that was the last movie I saw, but oh my god! In my opinion, Sturgess’ character is the equivalent of Enjolras IF he ever got a girlfriend. It just fueled the feels, my friends, it fueled the all consuming feels. COME ON FELLOW “MIS”-IANS! ENJOLRAS, FIGHTING FOR REVOLUTION! WITH A GIRLFRIEND! ALSJKVDBHSIDYUVHJKSDVHBVKJSDVBSIYVSDKJVSHDBVSUDKJVBSDHJUVBSDKJVSBDHIVCSDKJVSDHVGSDVLKSJDKVGSVUKSJDNVSGDVSKDJVHSDGVUSDKLVKBISDG
*heavy breathing*

I know there were mixed reviews, but fuck them, anyone that didn’t like this are wrong (lolololol) and they clearly didn’t get the point. (<– I’m only semi-joking when I say this)

Okay, I will allow for the bad reviews to be a result of people criticising the book to movie adaptation/ translation or what have you. I haven’t yet read the book (*gasp* *shock horror* I know, this is a very rare occasion- for crying out loud I still haven’t even seen “Perks” yet because I am set on READING it first), but trust me, this novel is on my list of top priority books to read when I finish!

People say it’s incredibly difficult to read, watching the film I can see exactly why that would be, however I simply cannot wait to slog my way through this masterpiece of ingenuity! David Mitchell is a virtuoso of distilling and controlling emotional pain. He is as luxurious with his characters as he is ruthless.

All in all, I am so ready to buy another 6 tickets to watch this movie by myself everyday for the next 6 days. Or however long it’ll be before it leaves cinemas. Fucking mocks screw up everything.

People, I know I’m not trusted with movie judgement, but I seem to be on a roll at the moment. I got my dad to watch and ENJOY “Fight Club” the other night, and tonight I picked another winner with “Cloud Atlas”. Even if you hate it, go and see it. Even if you walk out grumbling that it was a waste of however much you spent on buying the ticket, I can assure you, after a few moments of genuine reflection on the message of the movie, you will regret ever grumbling.

This movie. Would it be too extreme to say it has changed the way I see the world? Nope. It will probably stay with me for a very long time, furthermore, the novel is SURE to have a FAR MORE profound effect on my psyche. I swear, by the time I’m done with the novel I will need HELP to mend my shattered soul.

Yeah. Watch “Cloud Atlas” my friends, it is amazing. There aren’t many movies that even come CLOSE to how good it is.

 

PS- After all that excitement, I met my friends in the park outside my house. It was really nice to just chat, we won’t be able to do that for much longer. Anyway, the point is, it’s 1:30am now, but we were in the park at around 12:45am when the police showed up! No joke! I’ve never been involved with the police before! But my neighbourhood, for some reason, has fallen prey to a string of thefts recently so I can understand why the police would be suspicious of a group of 8 kids “loitering” in a kid’s park at nearly 1 in the morning. Anyway, they came over and asked us where we lived, why we were there etc… then asked for I.D., which I was thrilled about because I have nothing to hide and it meant for the first time I ACTUALLY GOT TO PULL OUT MY SHINY NEW REAL I.D.!

Only problem was, I hadn’t put it back in my wallet and instead just shoved it haphazardly back somewhere in my handbag and so when they asked for it and I made a big fuss of going “OH YES I DO I DO I DO PICK ME!”… I couldn’t find it. It was so awkward. My heart flew to my throat the entire time I searched my bag. In the end I wound up upending my handbag, letting the contents loose on the park floor before *finally* handing over my I.D.

After that, everyone pretty much skedadled, no-one wanted any trouble from the police, so we all just went home. Hence why I’m writing now! 🙂

Anyway, night all! Got a full day of revision ahead of me tomorrow… *sigh*

Eros and Psyche

Sculpture by Antonio Canova

This my favourite sculpture in the entire world. I remember the first time I laid eyes on it at the Louvre, it captured my heart in an instant. It wasn’t until today that I actually found the story of Eros (lust) and Psyche (soul).

Naturally, the tale comes from the Ancient Greeks originally (not that it didn’t stop the Romans stealing it, renaming Eros: Cupid). The version below is taken directly from Wikipedia (link at the bottom, woohoo for (bad) referencing!) :

The earliest recorded version of the story is the one told by Apuleius, which goes like this.

Psyche is a princess who is so beautiful that people begin to treat her like a goddess, making symbolic gestures and even sacrifices to her. The goddess Venus is jealous of this and decides as her revenge she will ask her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with some ugly mortal. Cupid reluctantly agrees, and flies to Psyche’s bedside. But as he is about to shoot one of his fateful arrows, Psyche wakes up, startles him, and he scratches his own leg. He falls in love with her.

Meanwhile, Psyche’s parents are concerned that Psyche has no suitors. She is so beautiful that no one dares to propose to her. They go to an oracle of Apollo, which instructs them to prepare her for marriage as one would be prepared for human sacrifice. The parents tearfully carry out this instruction, escorting her in procession to the top of a cliff. Psyche accepts her fate boldly, saying she is eager to meet her beautiful new husband.

The parents and their entourage leave Psyche to her fate. Psyche is then transported to a wood, where she finds a beautiful palace. She goes in, and begins to live there, served by invisible spirits. She even has an invisible lover. But he tells her she is not allowed to look at him directly, and he visits her only at night. She doesn’t even know who he is.

But Psyche can hear the voices of her sisters calling to her from the mortal realm. She goes back to visit them. They hear her stories about her new life, and jealously they urge to look at her husband, raising doubts in her mind that he might be a monster. So that night she looks at him, using a lamp. She sees that he is a god. But she frightens him, and he jostles the lamp, spilling hot oil on himself, which injures him. He leaves her and goes back to the realm of the gods.

Psyche returns home and is miserable. She then goes to temples and makes sacrifices to all the gods to find out which one it was that had been her lover. The only god who will answer her is Venus. The god turns out to be none other than her son Cupid (i.e. Desire or Eros; Venus means sexual desire, and Psyche’s name in turn means “soul”). Psyche begs Venus to help her find Cupid, and Venus then imposes a series of labors on Psyche – including a descent into Hades. Psyche is able to achieve these labors with help from divine assistants, including, for the last labor, Cupid himself.

Her successful completion of the labors means that Psyche is at last able to marry Cupid officially – she becomes immortal and they are united in eternity.

Then Psyche and Cupid have a baby, Voluptas (Pleasure) – who was, however, conceived before their official wedding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupid_and_Psyche

I have been inspired. 🙂

This is the second time I’ve had to write about this sculpture in my IB course, the first time being in TOK when we had to bring in a picture of one of our favourite pieces of art. The second time being now as I do my World Lit essay, one of the perfumes mentioned is called ‘Amor and Psyche’, which led me to look up any possible points of significance I could include in my analysis.

When I finally read the story I just knew I had to share it with you all!

(For the record: I don’t really think it does… unless… hang on… you’re currently reading my brain turning cogs right now… oh my god there is significance! HOLY CRAP! BRAIN BLAST! I GET IT! OMG! :O)

Okay, I might as well un-bracket this. HERE IS MY THEORY AS TO WHY “AMOR AND PSYCHE” IS SIGNIFICANT…………………..

Ok, so ‘Amor and Psyche’ translates to ‘Love/Lust and Soul’, after Grenouille replicates the perfume perfectly for Baldini in chapter 15 in order to convince him to take him on as an apprentice, Grenouille then offers to “make it better” (pg 88). This process of ‘making it better’, that being the scent of “Love and Soul” begins with Baldini when he teaches Grenouille, the tick, how to distill essences. From there Grenouille moves from perfumer to perfumer as he follows the course of Suskind’s bildungsroman novel, eventually making his masterpiece.

How? How does he make the scent of “love and soul” better? Well, by killing and distilling the ‘essences’ of 25 maidens. Not just any maidens at that, but 25 maidens that are some of “those rare humans who inspire love” (pg 195).

Grenouille’s masterpiece is the literal distillation of “love and soul”.

I’m a freaking genius.

*Smug Smirk*

Really hope this helps anyone out there who is doing “Perfume” for their Text in Translation essay! Good luck IB-ers!

My Copy of “Perfume” for Page References!