Last Updated on May 6, 2022 by Sangita Ekka
“If all I ever gave you was a hammer…Everything’s a nail…”
I believe that a well-made movie takes inspiration from one core idea and then carefully weaves a story around it. There’s intent, a message, and its rest falls in place. The quote mentioned above is from the Arrival movie, and for me, it captures its essence.
Hollywood has made chiefly villains out of aliens. They are always superior and malevolent, and the US army is inclined to shoot the alien pods down and save the day. Arrival 2016 movie challenges this idea.
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Instead of making assumptions about why a neighbor could be here or equipping them with malevolent intent, it questions – “What is your purpose on Earth?” and triggers a journey of breaking down the process of communication to its most abstract – intent, symbols, understanding.
The approach to deciphering an alien language is the brilliant bit about the movie and takes multiple references from real studies in linguistics. The medium chosen to make a foreign language is creatively rare and yet blends in a way to fit earthly technologies to understand them.
It won’t be a spoiler to reveal that Dr. Louise Banks, played by Amy Adams, is the central character of the story who gets picked by the US army to translate the alien messages. The movie makes it pretty clear at the very start. However, it’s fascinating how the story evolves to establish a communication from absolutely nothing.
Coming to visuals, Arrival movie proves that simplicity can inspire!
In any alien movie, revealing the spaceship demands a huge buildup and often needs creative spins to make it look otherworldly. There is nothing visually complex about the visitor’s vehicle here. Simple yet striking, the shell stands tall amidst the mysterious mountain fog, its intimidating size dwarfing every human military equipment standing against it.
All those visuals with ominous background music will leave a footprint in your memory. As for the visual effects, the music provided by Late Mr. Johann Johannsson is sublime at best, capturing the vibes of the scenes to their bones.
This movie blatantly differs from most of the alien films made so far. There are no random showoffs of weaponry or any references from wild conspiracy theories. Human intelligence is at work here, stemming from humane curiosity and the desire to truly understand.
Arrival would make you think about yourself – the human form, a branch of evolution that has managed to devise languages amongst many of its feats. It is easy to look for differences when encountering something “alien,” but it takes courage and love to look for similarities and build communication. The recurring theme and message are to not withhold data for an assumed upper hand but to share the information we individually possess to collectively see the bigger picture.
“We need to be talking to each other.”
There’s a lot more in the movie, but hinting about them would be very close to giving spoilers, and there would be a good time for that in no space-time. So, to conclude, the Arrival movie is based on the story – “Story of Your Life,” written by Ted Chiang and directed by Denis Villeneuve, who is associated with names like Dune, Maelström, and more.
Please watch Arrival if you haven’t already. Watch it if you are tired of the constant portrayal of us vs. them, boastful arsenals, and wars. I would be willing to hear what you think about this gem.
“In war, there are no winners, only widows.”
