Cloud Atlas vs. It's A Wonderful Life

"Upon the sacred path you keep, leading deeper into the unveiling
As you're sailing, across the great divide"
 - White Owl, by Josh Garrels



At first glance, the two books/films may appear to have nothing in common. "Atlas" is a story that spans decades, jumping from future to past, a grand concoction of many varied characters and plots. The movie is a dazzling display of talented actors, believable prosthetics and makeup, lush scenery and clever editing. The heart of the story - of the six stories it's composed of - is that everyone is connected to each other. People live and die and rebirth, and the choices made in one life effect our lives in the next.

"Life" is a story with the same kind of message: everyone is connected. Each life touches other lives in ways we can't imagine. Yet where "Atlas" points to reincarnation, and how the life we know now is shaped by our life in the past and will shape our future rebirth, "Life" points to the ways in which our one life, our one short amount of time on earth, touches everyone around us. 

While "Atlas" and "Life" both clearly say that one life can have a powerful ripple effect, one implies that we will have a repeating cycle of chances to make (hopefully) better choices, while one implores for us to not throw away our life because we only have the one life and it's a beautiful gift. *Spoiler alert*: For instance, in "Atlas", one character kills himself, stating beforehand that suicide isn't selfish, and going to lengths to make things as neat as possible, even though no amount of preparation can lessen the torrent of grief experienced by the friend trying to save his life. However in his next life, the character fights hard to preserve her life. He-now-she is chasing the truth at risk of her life, determined not to give up. In a way, I feel as though the story says that it was okay that the man - heartbroken and disgraced, though certainly not friendless - killed himself, because after his death he was reborn as someone with a more noble purpose, one which would act as self-preservation against everything that tried to stop her.

In "Life", we have one central character, George Bailey: the most loyal and hardworking son-husband-father-friend, but stuck in a small town and having to ignore his dreams again and again because he chooses to do what's right for others. Finally though, the injustice builds up to the breaking point, and George finds himself looking down over a ice-cold river, a desperate look in his eyes as he considers ending his life. So what would make him change his mind from jumping in to die? Jumping in to save someone else, of course. That is how he meets the angel that has been sent to help him, the angel that grants George's reckless wish to have never been born, and shows him what life would be like for everyone he loved if indeed he had never been around to save his veteran brother's life when he was a little boy, never there to marry his wife, never there to stay in the town he loved and loathed and make sure that it wasn't taken over by a scheming millionaire who didn't care for anyone well-being except his own. When George sees the full extent of how his one small life has touched other people's, he doesn't care about his lost dreams or even someone else's mistake that may send him to jail, he just wants to kiss his wife and hug his kids and see the town he has worked to help for so long for the sake of his friends. If he had jumped off that bridge it would have been it for him but the repercussions for those he loved would have been overwhelmingly painful. He is shown how each life is important for the sake of so many.

Obviously if you were to look at both films from a philosophical and theological standpoint, I'd be with "It's A Wonderful Life": however I'm not writing to say things against "Cloud Atlas", because it's a very compelling piece of fiction with many characters who are selfless to the extreme, making sacrifices for love of others and for the truth. I'm drawn to stories that try to show the big picture of all the choices we make and the ripple effect it causes. "Atlas" is creative, but I feel that "Life" is true: one life-span on this earth, however long or short, is all we have. Let's try to make it wonderful.