Arrival is a Great Movie
The plot in brief
Arrival starts with humans trying to understand the purpose behind the sudden arrival of extra-terrestrial beings on twelve spaceships at twelve different places on earth. A spaceship lands on Montana, USA and the US military reaches out to a well-acclaimed linguist so that she can try to understand the intent behind their sudden arrival.
As an introduction to the linguist Dr. Louise Banks, we get a montage of her spending time with her daughter who dies by cancer at a young age. In her initial monologue, she says that the story that is about to unfold is paradoxically the beginning of her daughter's life. This is something that the audience will understand towards the end of the film.
Dr. Louise Banks teams up with a renowned physicist Ian Donelly, and makes trips to inside the spaceship which opens a portal at a designated time regularly. She quickly understands that the aliens' mode of communication is very different from ours. They write their ideas as a single coherent circle which encapsulates everything that they want to express. Unlike our linear flow of words, where the meaning of each word depends on what precedes it and what follows it, their language is one coherent circularity where all ideas are expressed simultaneously.
The aliens do not experience time like we do: a linear flow with the present behind us and the future ahead. They can perceive existence in its entirety with the past, present and the future in one circle and each part making up the whole and the whole influencing the individual parts. Hence, their language is expressive of their unified circular perception.
As Dr. Louise Banks progresses in learning their language, she starts to dream in their language. As a result, she slowly starts having flashbacks of a little girl who she plays with. She further dreams that that little girl is her daughter who is doomed to have an untimely death due to her cancer. The explanation is that as she learns their language she also starts picking up their mode of perception. As a result, her sense of time goes from being unidirectional to circular; her present can look into the future which can influence her present actions. Her past and future do not diverge but rather meet together in one continuous circle.
Meanwhile, tension starts brewing among civilians and governments around the world. The Chinese leader fears that the aliens might be here to cause harm to humanity and gives them an ultimatum to leave Chinese soil within 24 hours. The Russians misinterpret their expression, "having no time" as humans not having enough time. Over time, the concerted multinational effort to understand the aliens falls apart and each nation braces for a possible large-scale conflict.
Dr Louise Banks guesses that the aliens might actually be here for humanity's good. She informs the military colonel about the aliens saying something about the parts becoming a whole. She also clarifies that "offer weapon" might not actually be a threat but an offer of a tool to humanity for our own good.
During one of their visits to the spaceship, some soldiers sneak a bomb into the spaceship along with Banks and Ian. The aliens knowing fully well, do not attack them and instead saves them when the bomb detonates. This further cements the fact that they are here for good. The aliens reveal that they want to help humanity and expect humanity to help them 3,000 years later.
Dr Banks looks into the future and finds that she meets with the leader of China who personally thanks her because she changed her mind of attacking the heptopods with her wife's dying words. She finds out his phone number, and the exact words she says to him. She then makes a phone call to him in the present and convinces him not to attack the heptopods, thereby stopping an existential conflict.
The film ends with Banks and Ian falling in love and marrying. Banks, despite knowing fully well that her marriage and subsequently her daughter will die an untimely death, chooses to start a family. Later on, Ian gets to know about this, and they fall out with each other. The daughter indeed goes on to die due to cancer.
The Major Themes
Arrival is a film that is going to stay for a long time with the audience after the film comes to end. It is unlike any other aliens movie I have seen, and touches on many philosophical points. The story is simple, and the visuals are artistic and beautifully shot.
Some of the major themes explored in the movie are the importance of language in how we think and perceive the world around, the momentariness of earthly existence, and so on.
Language as a means of perceiving the world
The film mentions Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, which states that our perception of the world around is defined by the language we speak. Thus, language not only shapes how we express our ideas but also how those ideas form in the first place. We see this in action in the film: Dr. Banks starts to gain the perception of the heptopods as she progresses in understanding their language. As a result, she starts to see into the future and take actions in the present based on what she sees in the future. The memory of the past and the vision of the future tie together for her.
Coming to terms with our momentary existence
Equipped with the power of seeing time as a circular continuity, Dr. Banks decides to follow her feelings and start a family with Ian. Even though she knows the melancholic outcome of her actions, she continues nonetheless. I interpret this decision as affirming that life is worth living to the fullest with all its joys and sorrows, even when the end is predestined. Perhaps this is another side of the unity which the heptopods see of time: that misery and happiness do not exist in isolation but rather as a part of a whole life, which makes sense only with all the intricate parts coming together as w whole.
The language of the heptopods
The heptopods do not perceive time linearly. Instead, they can perceive the entirety of it, and any notion of demarcated past and future does not exist for them. Their language also reflects this circular perception of time. As they can see the future, they do not have to talk to direct actions. Their speech is seemingly ceremonial.
Another interesting thing is that they do not have position-dependent change in the meaning of words. They express their ideas as one whole, where the individual parts have no standalone meaning and become meaningful only when perceived as a whole. I think that this also lends to their charitable view to life because they do not perceive humans as 'others' but as an integral part of the whole of existence along with them.
The gift they want to give humanity is this perception of the whole. That is the purpose behind their arrival.
Some criticisms of the movie
It is only right that I express some of my criticism of the movies. The first one is how the military colonel himself arrives to Dr. Banks door to request for her help as she is apparently the only one who can translate alien-speak. He does this with no initiation whatsoever and does no boring paper-work. Maybe, the filmmakers wanted to show the secret nature of her work through the lack of any formal documentation. Also, she directly goes to work wit no preparations whatsoever, and we see no reading or struggling to understand the language. The only rationalization behind her making significant breakthroughs is because she is the lead.
Some parts of the movie was also overly dramatized; for instance the university scenes where only a few students arrive in class shell-shocked. As a college student myself, I do not think this well-behaved venting of shock is how college-age youngsters would express their shock at the arrival of extra-terrestrials. Also, towards the end of the film, it is highly unbelievable how she could single-handedly make a personal phone call to the Chinese leader and convince them to stop fighting over a single phone call. That was way too over-the-top.
Ending note
Arrival is a thought-provoking and intellectually-stimulating movie. I really enjoyed it. This movie is a recommendation from me.