Have you ever watched a movie so deep you couldn’t tell if the movie was good or bad? But then you walked out the cinema and went ‘holy shit, that was indeed mind-blowing’ and started having mild existential crisis?
That was probably the first thing I had to say about Arrival. I saw the movie yesterday and, boy, it was definitely not what I expected when I decided to get myself a ticket in the first place. Let me elaborate in the next paragraphs to come.
For the starter, I’d say that Arrival falls in the science fiction/psychological category. Go check their IMDB page for more accurate details.
I, however, love this movie. The thing is: everything about this movie went against my expectation and beyond but in a good way. I love how the movie digs into deeper question like the way we perceive time or the way we interpret reality. Arrival offers solid philosophical questions, which was enough to cover up the lack of answers we had about the extra-terrestrial part of the movie. This movie's definitely a heaven for postmodernist ideas. It was intriguing—the idea of nonlinear way of thinking—and right now I can’t think of any better quote than the Ninth Doctor’s definition of time:
To sum up, Arrival is an open-ended movie which makes a good prologue for a greater movie but when you leave it alone, it makes you question the way you see life and it’s great nonetheless.
For the starter, I’d say that Arrival falls in the science fiction/psychological category. Go check their IMDB page for more accurate details.
The story revolves around Louise Banks (Amy Adams); a linguist, a professor, an expert in language and translation field. For the first three minutes or so, they showed us a brief story of Louise’s life as a mother. For the first three minutes or so, I legit thought that I entered the wrong theater (despite my mind yelling ‘but it’s Amy Adams!’) because (1) I wasn’t prepared for such sentimental side, not when I came to the cinema expecting space and aliens (due to its trailer), and (2) that scene alone would fit perfectly on Buzzfeed’s 31 Movies All Mothers Should Watch with Their Daughters list.
I didn’t sign up for that—not that I’m complaining though.
But then, Louise started to talk about how her perspective on time changed and that was exactly when things were getting pretty interesting.
What happened was that one day, twelve gigantic oval rock-like object appeared in twelve different locations around the world including Montana, US. The army came knocking on her door in search for a way to understand what these ‘guests’ were ‘saying’ and, long story short, they brought her to Montana where she’d meet Ian Donelly (Jeremy Renner); a physicist whom she’d be working very closely with. Every 18 hours, the strange object would open its ‘door’ and their task was to go meet the owner (aliens!) and figure out what the hell they were even doing, hanging several feet above the ground for what seemed to be no reason.
In the end, Louise and her team were finally able to decrypt their language. It turns out that these aliens called hexapods (due to the number of what seemed to be their legs) spoke in sentences with a whole different syntax from human language; something they called non-linear orthography for the hexapods used circular symbols which actually consisted of words with no particular sequence. To make it simpler: their sentence had neither beginning nor end.
Let that sink.
Before I spoil the movie even further, I have to say that Arrival might not be everyone’s cup of tea. If you expected to see some ‘time and space’ contents, you’d be pretty disappointed because the movie only explored the ‘time’ part and left out pretty much everything about the ‘space’ one. If you’re looking for some badass action a la Star Wars franchise, boy, you’re watching the wrong movie.
In a way, the movie was pretty anticlimactic because in the end, spoiler alert, the hexapods and their vehicles just literally dispersed into thin air and bid farewell to Earth. The movie failed to answer the basic question that was ‘what the hell were those hexapods and which part of the galaxy did they even come from?’ which might be pretty annoying. The only clue we had about these hexapods was that ‘they’re trying to help and they’ll be back in 3,000 years’ and that basically explained nothing.
I didn’t sign up for that—not that I’m complaining though.
But then, Louise started to talk about how her perspective on time changed and that was exactly when things were getting pretty interesting.
What happened was that one day, twelve gigantic oval rock-like object appeared in twelve different locations around the world including Montana, US. The army came knocking on her door in search for a way to understand what these ‘guests’ were ‘saying’ and, long story short, they brought her to Montana where she’d meet Ian Donelly (Jeremy Renner); a physicist whom she’d be working very closely with. Every 18 hours, the strange object would open its ‘door’ and their task was to go meet the owner (aliens!) and figure out what the hell they were even doing, hanging several feet above the ground for what seemed to be no reason.
In the end, Louise and her team were finally able to decrypt their language. It turns out that these aliens called hexapods (due to the number of what seemed to be their legs) spoke in sentences with a whole different syntax from human language; something they called non-linear orthography for the hexapods used circular symbols which actually consisted of words with no particular sequence. To make it simpler: their sentence had neither beginning nor end.
Let that sink.
Before I spoil the movie even further, I have to say that Arrival might not be everyone’s cup of tea. If you expected to see some ‘time and space’ contents, you’d be pretty disappointed because the movie only explored the ‘time’ part and left out pretty much everything about the ‘space’ one. If you’re looking for some badass action a la Star Wars franchise, boy, you’re watching the wrong movie.
In a way, the movie was pretty anticlimactic because in the end, spoiler alert, the hexapods and their vehicles just literally dispersed into thin air and bid farewell to Earth. The movie failed to answer the basic question that was ‘what the hell were those hexapods and which part of the galaxy did they even come from?’ which might be pretty annoying. The only clue we had about these hexapods was that ‘they’re trying to help and they’ll be back in 3,000 years’ and that basically explained nothing.
Imagine you’re just chilling and suddenly a stranger comes to ‘help’ you and you’re like ‘uh, who the hell are you and why do I even need help?’ but the stranger only goes ‘you don’t have to know my name’ and disappears like he's some sort of masked hero. That’s how I felt.
I, however, love this movie. The thing is: everything about this movie went against my expectation and beyond but in a good way. I love how the movie digs into deeper question like the way we perceive time or the way we interpret reality. Arrival offers solid philosophical questions, which was enough to cover up the lack of answers we had about the extra-terrestrial part of the movie. This movie's definitely a heaven for postmodernist ideas. It was intriguing—the idea of nonlinear way of thinking—and right now I can’t think of any better quote than the Ninth Doctor’s definition of time:
"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it’s more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey…stuff."
To sum up, Arrival is an open-ended movie which makes a good prologue for a greater movie but when you leave it alone, it makes you question the way you see life and it’s great nonetheless.
If you're into stories that go beyond what's served and push you deep in thought, then I'll definitely recommend this movie for you.
