ArrivalIt has been said that every conflict comes from a breakdown of communication--a misunderstanding. Arrival is a science fiction movie about a dozen massive alien spaceships that descend to various places around the globe, without any apparent rhyme or reason. Nations around the world create task forces to understand and interpret the aliens' reason for their visit, realizing that there is a significant language barrier. Linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is recruited by Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) to interpret for these inscrutable visitors; but even if she understands what they have to say, who will listen?
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(Fair warning: in order to discuss what makes Arrival interesting, spoilers follow.) Arrival opens with a prologue that depicts Louise's daughter, Hannah, through various stages of her all-too brief life, before she died at twelve due to an incurable terminal disease, then introduces Louise on the day of the arrival. What Arrival does here is exploit the audience's inherent expectations that a story must be told in a chronological fashion, because by the time of the arrival, Hannah had not yet been born. What appear to be flashbacks are really "flash-forwards", but Arrival withholds this piece of information--along with others--to emphasize a key aspect of what the aliens bring to humanity, which turns out to be a universal language that has the incidental benefit of fostering precognition. Almost all of Arrival is veiled in moments of confusion, periodically giving way to revelations of clarity, varying by degrees. The first is, of course, the discovering of alien life on a global scale. The whole world is in a daze afterwards; drivers are distracted at Louise's school, people around the world begin protesting and rioting, suicide cults take it as the ultimate sign of their faith, and bickering pundits and politicians assume the worst. Fear rules, and humanity begins to buckle under the weight of the mystery. When Colonel Weber first meets Louise, he isn't above criticizing the media for judging him, and in turn is in a constant state of impatience from then on. Despite this, he invites her to join his team, based near one of the craft in the wildlands of Montana. There are also at least three scenes where Louise offers elucidation about why her method of communicating the aliens is correct to the frustrated Weber, who constantly insists on having something to take back to Washington about their progress. Louise is joined by a scientist named Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), and the two find camaraderie with each other, since both are motivated to truly understand their visitors. On the other hand, their makeshift FOB is also staffed by Agent Halpern (Michael Stuhlbarg), a cynical representative of the CIA who constantly acts as the dissenting voice to Louise and Ian's benevolent outlook on the aliens' attempts to communicate with them. Their relationship is a microcosm of the global debate about whether the aliens are friend or foe, which has been punctuated by knee-jerk reactions and moments of fearmongering. The task forces across the globe stay in touch and share information about their research via video conference...until they don't. As interpretation of the aliens' language progresses across different avenues, Chinese General Shang (Tzi Ma) ultimately concludes that the aliens are a menace when they interpret a phrase to be "offer weapon", and nations loyal to his country begin to fall in line with predictable results. The sharing of information ends, and only fear remains.
The language barrier between the aliens and humanity crumbles only because of an act of trust by Louise, notably when she disregards safety protocols and removes her hazmat suit to give the aliens--who Ian calls "Abbott and Costello"--a better look at what humanity really looks like. Certainly the alien craft--and its unusual way of handling gravity--is terrifying to humans, as are the aliens themselves. They are giant, squid-like creatures that Ian dubs "heptapods", because they have seven limbs. As efforts to interpret their language on an auditory-only basis falters, Louise brings a dry erase board, and introduces written language. The heptapods respond by emitting an ink-like gas that forms into a circular shape, which Louise identifies has small variances that signify their language. From here, they dissect the language and develop a way of conversing, if only at the most primitive level. More importantly, Louise and Ian begin to see how the language represents how they think, their values, and even how they view time itself. Unlike many languages in our world that rely on "tenses" to indicate if something has happened, is happening, or will happen, their language suggests that they view time in a non-linear fashion. In a conversation between Louise and Ian that encapsulates much of Arrival, he shares with her that a study he read indicated that immersion in a language essentially "rewires" your brain, and that language itself dictated how people think and interpret their world. This point is at the core of this movie, when one considers how varied the global response is to the aliens, or really any other aspect of our lives. This thought can be applied to virtually any aspect of our global society, and requires that we consider the different perspectives of our fellow earthlings before casting judgment. Our own individual experiences make us who we are, and that the challenge comes from being willing to relinquish our preconceptions and prejudices to just listen to one another and really get to know each other. In this way, Arrival argues for peaceful coexistence at all levels of life and society, so long as we are willing to learn instead of merely digging our heels in out of ignorance and fear.
Recommended for: Fans of a science fiction movie with a message about understanding and the willingness to accept differences, be they in language, origin, or opinion. Arrival borrows extensively from many science fiction classics, ranging from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but remains engaging because of the way that the story unfolds and the relevance of its content, especially today.
The language barrier between the aliens and humanity crumbles only because of an act of trust by Louise, notably when she disregards safety protocols and removes her hazmat suit to give the aliens--who Ian calls "Abbott and Costello"--a better look at what humanity really looks like. Certainly the alien craft--and its unusual way of handling gravity--is terrifying to humans, as are the aliens themselves. They are giant, squid-like creatures that Ian dubs "heptapods", because they have seven limbs. As efforts to interpret their language on an auditory-only basis falters, Louise brings a dry erase board, and introduces written language. The heptapods respond by emitting an ink-like gas that forms into a circular shape, which Louise identifies has small variances that signify their language. From here, they dissect the language and develop a way of conversing, if only at the most primitive level. More importantly, Louise and Ian begin to see how the language represents how they think, their values, and even how they view time itself. Unlike many languages in our world that rely on "tenses" to indicate if something has happened, is happening, or will happen, their language suggests that they view time in a non-linear fashion. In a conversation between Louise and Ian that encapsulates much of Arrival, he shares with her that a study he read indicated that immersion in a language essentially "rewires" your brain, and that language itself dictated how people think and interpret their world. This point is at the core of this movie, when one considers how varied the global response is to the aliens, or really any other aspect of our lives. This thought can be applied to virtually any aspect of our global society, and requires that we consider the different perspectives of our fellow earthlings before casting judgment. Our own individual experiences make us who we are, and that the challenge comes from being willing to relinquish our preconceptions and prejudices to just listen to one another and really get to know each other. In this way, Arrival argues for peaceful coexistence at all levels of life and society, so long as we are willing to learn instead of merely digging our heels in out of ignorance and fear.
Recommended for: Fans of a science fiction movie with a message about understanding and the willingness to accept differences, be they in language, origin, or opinion. Arrival borrows extensively from many science fiction classics, ranging from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but remains engaging because of the way that the story unfolds and the relevance of its content, especially today.