Fire Walk With Me

Oh man. It kind of looks like a train-wreck.

I looooove that book but it was just short of way too much. Part of what was impressive about it was how the author managed what could have been an incredibly annoying conceit (story within a story within a story) and made it all lace together beautifully. It’s a high-wire act that he pulls off by the skin of his teeth, which is part of why I love it.

As a movie, though? A Hollywood movie? Oh man. It’s way too much. I wish they’d given some film student 10,000 bucks and a camcorder and let them do what they wanted with it. I wish they’d chosen just one of the stories, maybe the Sonmei 451 section, and let the other stories be just suggestions. 

Also? Some of the themes of the book are going to come out really hamhanded with Hollywood doing it. If you read interviews with David Mitchell a lot of what he’s wrestling with in his books is the idea of “predacity”

(1. Living by seizing or taking prey; predatory.2. Given to victimizing, plundering, or destroying for one’s own gain)

In Cloud Atlas specifically we’re looking at the will to power, how the strong subjugate the weak. We see it happening over and over again in all of the time periods of the story. That’s why, specifically, those time periods were chosen. In short they’re a snapshot of colonialism taken from 1850 onwards. 

From the trailer, though, you’d think this was a “love through the ages” story like The Fountain. That’s certainly in the book, in places, but it was far from my favorite aspect of it. 

And Tom Hanks? Really? Oh god. :/