Why We Fight: Searching for Justice in an Unjust World

Last updated on: October 25, 2012 at 6:00 am by Alexis Neal

Why We Fight: Searching for Justice in an Unjust World 2012-10-25T06:00:23-06:00 Alexis Neal

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A Review of Cloud Atlas, directed by Tom Tykwer and Wachowski Starship

By ALEXIS NEAL

Every once in a while, you see movies advertised as offering ‘something for everyone,’ and it’s usually just so much marketing malarkey. Cloud Atlas is an exception. This deeply strange film includes: a period adventure on the high seas (complete with abolitionist sub-plot); a tragic Gothic love story full of secrecy and betrayal; a 1970’s conspiracy thriller; a screwball madcap comedy caper; a dystopian sci-fi tale of oppression, rebellion, and star-crossed lovers; and a tribal struggle set in a Planet of the Apes future. These six stories are interwoven into a single, unique (albeit rather long) film. It is truly one-of-a-kind.

But as I listened to various characters pontificate about vaguely philosophical ideas, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Cloud Atlas is perhaps laboring under the misapprehension that it is deeper and more important than it actually is—the sum of all wisdom, perhaps, or the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

As such an all-important film, it falls flat. But taken as an interesting experiment—the telling of six tales as one—executed with skill and dexterity, it is by no means unsatisfactory. It is even enjoyable (if occasionally confusing), and I must confess that it felt like a much shorter film that it was (it clocks in at a hefty 161 minutes).

The filmmakers rely on a fairly small stable of actors, each of whom does double, triple, or quadruple (even quintuple or sextuple) duty across the six stories, and they chose their cast well. It is a joy to see skilled actors inhabit such a wide range of characters in a single work, particularly when they are clearly having such a good time with their roles (see, e.g., Tom Hanks as a thug-cum-author, and Hugh Grant, Hugo Weaving, and Jim Broadbent across the board). This was my first exposure to James D’Arcy, who brings a certain quiet wistfulness to each of his roles. I found myself liking those he likes simply because he likes them (even when those he likes are utterly unlikable). Jim Sturgess, another newish face to me, is serviceable and sympathetic as an ailing young lawyer aboard a ship in the mid-nineteenth century, but really shines as the selfless rebel captain who handles the terrified fabricant/clone with gentle kindness but who, as it turns out, also kicks a fair amount of totalitarian behind. And I swear Susan Sarandon gets more luminous with every passing year. But the real stars are arguably the makeup artists, who certainly earned their keep (and probably an Oscar nomination, if not an outright win), skillfully distinguishing the various characters played by each actor and often crossing ethnic lines with surprising success (with the exception of their attempt to turn Doona Bae into a be-freckled Southern belle).

The stories themselves are told well, and any one of them would make an excellent film in its own right. The connection between the stories is, however, rather tenuous. They are not only disparate in style and setting; they are disparate in substance (despite a recurring birthmark that Wikipedia tells me was meant, at least in the book, to signal a single soul’s reincarnation across time, a theme that is never clearly developed in the film). Of course, the filmmakers (and the original novelist) undoubtedly think the stories are connected in some deep and meaningful way, and perhaps they are. The stories, though distinct, do share thematic similarities. In interviews, the filmmakers (and actors) have cited as central the idea that we are all connected to one another across time, and our actions and choices reverberate through history. (This theme is echoed on a practical level by the physical passing of the stories from plot to plot. Each story is documented in some way (in journals, correspondence, etc.) and passed on to the actors in the next story, whose story is then documented and passed along again.) So, ok, there are connections and the movie certainly has Things To Say.

For the Wachowkis, the unifying theme of the stories is a sense of community and human connectedness. I was struck, however, by the portrayal of injustice as a universal experience. In each story, an injustice is being committed, and in each story, the characters involved must decide how to respond to that injustice. Some characters choose selfishness; others engage with circumstances in an attempt to bring about justice. So the fabricant/clone, when confronted with the horrible fate inflicted en masse on others like herself, chooses to take a stand in defense of those whom society as deemed ‘less than human’ and thus undeserving of basic human rights, or even life itself.* This decision proves costly, yet the film clearly embraces the sacrifice of self for the pursuit of justice as honorable and right. This idea of self-sacrifice for the sake of justice recurs across several story lines—a young lawyer helps an escaped slave; a freedom fighter saves a helpless girl; a man risks his life to help the daughter of a friend; a woman risks her life for truth and to save thousands, perhaps millions; and a man undertakes a dangerous journey in exchange for a cure for a sick girl. In two of the story lines, this theme is rather muddled, as the victim and the savior are the same person, and, in one story, the perceived solution to the injustice is apparently self-salvation through suicide.

Regardless of whether we agree with the means used to combat injustice—or even with the filmmakers’ characterization of certain events and actions as unjust—this experience of injustice makes an excellent theme, for it is common to all. If there is any universal constant in a fallen world, it is injustice. As Christians, we know this, not only from our own experience, but because of what we read in Scripture. Evil men prosper, and righteous men suffer. (Psalm 73; Jeremiah 12:1-4; Job) This is a function of the sin that has tainted and poisoned the world since the Fall. (Genesis 3:17-19; Romans 8:20-22) But what are we to do about it? Why should we care about the injustices endured by others? Why should we expect their help when we are ourselves victims of injustice?

We know that God is just—in His character and His actions. (Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalm 33:5; Psalm 140:12; Revelation 15:2-4) Sometimes, this is a comforting thought. After all, God promises to punish those who seem to get off scot-free in this life. (Nahum 1:3) Because He promises to execute final justice in the end, we can trust Him while we endure injustice in this life. But for sinners like us, this justice can also be a terrifying thought—if no sin goes unpunished, we are in deep, deep trouble. If God wreaks justice upon us, we are doomed. Yet justice is not God’s only attribute. He is also loving and merciful, and His perfect justice is tempered by that love and mercy. So despite our sin, and the eternal punishment we earned thereby, He sent His own Son to bear the penalty in our place. In this gospel, we see perfect love and perfect justice united in self-sacrifice. (Romans 3:22-26)

As Christians, we are to emulate this aspect of His character. Like the more admirable characters in Cloud Atlas (and there are several), we are to seek justice—to defend the defenseless, to protect the weak, to sacrifice ourselves for others. (Proverbs 18:5; Proverbs 29:7; Isaiah 1:17; Micah 6:8; Matthew 23:23) The justice we seek, however, like the justice of God Himself, is to be tempered with mercy. We are to seek justice, yes, but more than that, we are also to love our neighbor, even laying down our lives for others. We sacrifice ourselves for others, even when those others do not deserve it, because God sacrificed for us when all we deserved was eternal damnation. (Deuteronomy 24:17-22; Luke 10:25-37; John 15:13; Galatians 5:14) We love because He first loved us. (I John 4:19) Our belief in and gratitude for the gospel is what drives us to love others and seek justice on their behalf, and this motivation is—or should be—stronger than any mere ‘human connection across time’.

*While it is by no means a central theme in the film, I was struck by the (likely unintended) parallels between the fate of the fabricants/clones and the tragic reality of abortion. These fabricants are manufactured and destroyed at will, and the film is clear that the mass slaughter of these ‘sub-human’ creatures is both horrifying and reprehensible. The heroine of the story—a fabricant/clone herself—proclaims repeatedly that people are connected to one another ‘from womb to tomb’, arguably implying, that people in the womb are, in fact, people. (Whether this is deliberate allusion to West Side Story is unclear.) As I said, I don’t think this was an intended parallel, so it’s not the focus of my review, but it is still worth noting.

_______________________________________________________________

Alexis Neal is an attorney in the Washington, D.C., area. She regularly reviews young adult literature at www.childrensbooksandreviews.com and everything else at quantum-meruit.blogspot.com.

Previous Post

October 24, 2012

This is the way the world ends…

Next Post

October 26, 2012 Weirdness at its most effective

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Action AFI Top 100 Animation Best Picture Winner BFI Top 250 Biography Biopic Books Childrens Christian Classics Classics Comedy Crime Documentary Drama Editor's Choice Family Fantasy Fantasy Films Foreign Historical Historical Fiction History Horror Horror IMDB Top 250 Indie Memoir Modern Novel Musical Mystery Non-Fiction Oscars Philosophy Poetry Popular Literature Reading and Writing Reality Romance Science Fiction Science Fiction Silent Sports Thriller TV Show Uncategorized Western Westerns Young Adult

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 June 2017 January 2017 December 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which Christian group follows the Five Points of Calvinism?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Reformed Methodists Pentecostals Baptists