7) Cloud Atlas (2012): Frobisher’s Suicide
It might seem unfair to label Cloud Atlas as average, when it appeared on many of the ‘best of’ lists of 2012. However – it famously polarized critics, and appears on almost as many ‘worst of’ lists. It is easy to see how this happened, too. The cinematic equivalent of yelling “look over there!” and then running away, Cloud Atlas is undeniably ambitious and continually stunning in both concept and design – but it is often emotionally detached and relies too heavily on set pieces and the actors’ changing guises (which, although necessary for the story, at times feels rather gimmick-like).
There is no sense of this, however, during the sequence in which Frobisher commits suicide.
Having completed his musical masterpiece – the titular Cloud Atlas sextet – and now destitute and wanted by the police, Frobisher has written to his lover Sixsmith to indirectly tell him of his intention to kill himself. This letter in voice over (accompanied by the beautiful Cloud Atlas sextet itself), as Frobisher uses his final moments to watch Sixsmith searching for him on the Cambridge tower, features the least pretentious and most beautiful lines of dialogue of the whole film, and also those that explain most clearly the story’s central premise – that the same souls continue to interconnect throughout history. “I know,” he says, “that separation is only an illusion….There is another world waiting for us Sixsmith, a better world. And I’ll be waiting for you there.”
Sixsmith’s discovery of Frobisher’s body only moments after his suicide also leads to the movie’s most moving piece of acting. His despair and loss is palpable, and achingly poignant against the words that have just been spoken. Suddenly the idea behind the whole of Cloud Atlas feels tremendously important: That there is always the hope that loved ones will meet each other again, in some other time and place.
