The movie Cloud Atlas (2012) is very much about reincarnation, karma, and the connections between immortal souls. These pantheistic underpinnings make it an interesting movie to dissect. All six of the storylines in the movie deal with freedom in some way— to free slaves, compose music, expose a scandal, write a novel, start a revolution, or leave this world. But for all of its talk of freedom, there is still an underlying message of bondage—karmic bondage…

I recently saw the movie Cloud Atlas (2012) starring Tom Hanks and Halle Berry and based on the novel by David Mitchell. And I think the movie had a lot of people scratching their head. It did me. But I also thought its eastern thinking was very apparent. In the film, six interrelated stories are told that span nearly 500 years, from 1849 to 2321. Ten minutes in to the movie I gave up trying to figure out the connections between the stories and characters. And I’ve noticed that many reviewers gave up trying to give any explanation as to what the film means. As for me, on one level the film is a story of …