Arrival

Arrival

Plot

The film Arrival, directed by Denis Villeneuve, is a thought-provoking science fiction drama that flips the conventional notion of time on its head. It is based on a short story called 'Story of Your Life' by Ted Chiang, which shares a similar theme with the movie. The movie takes place after 12 alien spacecrafts land silently and without warning in 12 locations across the globe, including one in Montana where the U.S. Army sets up a makeshift base to investigate. At the center of the film is Dr. Louise Banks (played by Amy Adams), a renowned linguist who specializes in deciphering the complexities of language. Louise is recruited by the military to join a team of scientists and experts to understand the purpose and language of the aliens. The team at the base in Montana comes under the command of Colonel Weber (played by Michael Stuhlbarg), who attempts to keep the linguists focused and working according to the plan he has devised. Louise, along with physicist Dr. Ian Donnelly (played by Jeremy Renner), commences her work by observing the alien spacecraft. The creatures within the ships remain silent, which is unnerving to the human team and raises several questions. The team slowly starts to get clues about the aliens' presence on Earth and soon discovers patterns in the setup of their spaceships and that they do not cause any harm to the environment around them. Upon closer observation, Louise discovers that the aliens communicate through an object, a black structure resembling a tetrathink crystalline lattice. The information the aliens transmit through this structure contradicts the standard process of language learning, as the names given to these objects are not descriptive but instead contain the contextual and the emotional information. Louise starts to believe that this way of communication allows them to encompass all meaning at once, breaking down the temporal barriers. As Louise further probes the structure, she is exposed to visions of her memories and interactions that have not yet occurred. The aliens, known as "Heptapods" due to their seven- limbed bodies, can communicate information through time. They have the ability to process languages that transcend the time axis and in turn respond with memories that will not be experienced until they occur. Louis's mind is flooded by information from her past and future, culminating in a moment where the linguist understands the context of her work with the aliens. This moment distills all the disparate patterns of language data and makes her unravel her comprehension. She unites the historical elements of life – before her arrival and after, which are two vastly different eras. The cognitive concept resonates deeply within Louise. When she momentarily leaves the past and future and becomes fully immersed in her present moment, her comprehension on time allows her a direct translation of the alien language. At such a juncture of intense mental clarity and understanding, Louise conveys her revelation to Ian and Colonel Weber. A significant and long-present paradox that became increasingly enigmatic arises: whether we truly remember future events or just understand their value by living through the time of their event, and vice versa. Does one merely perceive it through pre-existing prior mental structures that pre-program a memory or, in the larger probability, was this enigma an ultimate in linear and conceptual structures all along. Amidst her rising connection with the alien language, Louise encounters Ian's perception about what his presence means in Louise's space of time perceptions. The two figures now connect in much more personal realms by touching. However, ultimately, Colonel Weber comes to dominate this perception by calling forth an invasive analysis device for a deeper review of the alien spaceships. While all work in earnest, an unseen catastrophic paradox sets in motion in a confrontation between their wills, threatening Earth's present-future order as if the stakes to Louise and Ian ever rose to stand firmly outside chance. Ultimately, the film ends with a hint that we are in the middle of decoding messages we have possibly projected about the human psyche to them; using it as our most complex and multifaceted 'communication method' yet to break unheeding patterns so that all the worlds might finally be made to speak the language of an individual just for one time...

Arrival screenshot 1
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