Arrival Arrives: Heptapod B no Longer a Nerd Secret Handshake
Someone here at LiveJournal suggested that something I said reminded them of The Story of Your Life, by Ted Chiang, so I read it and really enjoyed it. In fact, it has been a secret nerd handshake until now, an indicator that the speaker was one of us, people who still read sci fi, not just watch movies and television with spaceships, et cetera. But I should accept that this is the way it is now, because it's all contained within the story of my life, isn't it?
So the movies had to some along and ruin it for us nerds, by making a movie from it called "Arrival" with Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, directed nicely by Denis Villeneuve. Aliens land, need to communicate, our protagonist is called in to try to translate their weird humpback-whale-like language. The movie makes a meal of explaining how you would go about talking to newly-found beings with no mutual language, which is surprising in this day of superhero/titanic explosions films. The big plot-turning point occurs - hold onto your seat, I know the excitement is probably overwhelming here - when the linguist, making zero headway, decides to hold up placards to ascertain if they have writing. *gasp* After all, they have multiple "legs" with multiple "fingers" each, so writing might be an option.
This precipitates the rest of The Action, if you can call this lovely 2001:-A Space Odyssey-style-flash-back-of-a-film an action movie. This is a wonderful film. We are not sure everyone is not in terrible danger, and we are not sure it is necessary that anyone other than the linguist lives. (Note: Forrest Whitaker does need the director to rein him in a little. I like Forrest, but somebody tell him not to do accents, please.)
I don't want to give the ending away, in case you plan to take this in, but it is not about explosions, even though there are some literally on-screen, it is about time, memory, love, wonder, and how different places in your life's journey are colored by all the experiences you have had along the way. POV and what it means. Pretty freaking literary for a movie.
Best of all, in line with the plot and the theme, the film tricks us in a big way that, in retrospect, is satisfying, even if we are sad about the characters and their fates.
Tiny (directorial?) touches that really add (kudos, Denis):
- The linguist wearing diamond earrings that are Phi spirals.
- Things numbered in prime number amounts, especially 2. The physicist specifically mentions that they are looking for primes to be part of the decoding process with the aliens, and, frame-breakingly, so should we the audience be looking. (For instance, the military encampment near the ship, carefully and fully shot from the air as the helicopter POV spirals in, is chock-full of pairs of objects. Check out the number of items in pairs in other scenes. Be sure when watching to see past the main action to discrete items which, as you count them, total to a prime number.)
- Jeremy does a great job not upstaging Amy; he puts in a nice realistic performance as a scientist who got lucky enough to touch an object from space, fear and a little giddy wonder combined. Not sure if I should credit the actor or the director, but it was lovely.
- The music is by Johan Johansson, but the best part about it is its deliberate absence in some scenes, and at least once, a wonderful sequence where we think the scene has no music, that we are hearing background noise, until the rising volume makes it clear that it's the music.
- The sound was good all around, sound and foley guys - in a helicopter, linguist cannot hear what the other passengers are saying, and neither can we, until she put on the headphones; the machine racket becomes muted as she does so, and we can hear what she hears, and hear her join the conversation. We are given her POV via sounds, even though the visual directing is not obviously doing that. Sneaky. Also, in a movie about Communicating with The Other, this is beautiful foreshadowing.
I'll stop now, having gushed enough. I went and saw it twice, if that tells you anything.
So the movies had to some along and ruin it for us nerds, by making a movie from it called "Arrival" with Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, directed nicely by Denis Villeneuve. Aliens land, need to communicate, our protagonist is called in to try to translate their weird humpback-whale-like language. The movie makes a meal of explaining how you would go about talking to newly-found beings with no mutual language, which is surprising in this day of superhero/titanic explosions films. The big plot-turning point occurs - hold onto your seat, I know the excitement is probably overwhelming here - when the linguist, making zero headway, decides to hold up placards to ascertain if they have writing. *gasp* After all, they have multiple "legs" with multiple "fingers" each, so writing might be an option.
This precipitates the rest of The Action, if you can call this lovely 2001:-A Space Odyssey-style-flash-back-of-a-film an action movie. This is a wonderful film. We are not sure everyone is not in terrible danger, and we are not sure it is necessary that anyone other than the linguist lives. (Note: Forrest Whitaker does need the director to rein him in a little. I like Forrest, but somebody tell him not to do accents, please.)
I don't want to give the ending away, in case you plan to take this in, but it is not about explosions, even though there are some literally on-screen, it is about time, memory, love, wonder, and how different places in your life's journey are colored by all the experiences you have had along the way. POV and what it means. Pretty freaking literary for a movie.
Best of all, in line with the plot and the theme, the film tricks us in a big way that, in retrospect, is satisfying, even if we are sad about the characters and their fates.
Tiny (directorial?) touches that really add (kudos, Denis):
- The linguist wearing diamond earrings that are Phi spirals.
- Things numbered in prime number amounts, especially 2. The physicist specifically mentions that they are looking for primes to be part of the decoding process with the aliens, and, frame-breakingly, so should we the audience be looking. (For instance, the military encampment near the ship, carefully and fully shot from the air as the helicopter POV spirals in, is chock-full of pairs of objects. Check out the number of items in pairs in other scenes. Be sure when watching to see past the main action to discrete items which, as you count them, total to a prime number.)
- Jeremy does a great job not upstaging Amy; he puts in a nice realistic performance as a scientist who got lucky enough to touch an object from space, fear and a little giddy wonder combined. Not sure if I should credit the actor or the director, but it was lovely.
- The music is by Johan Johansson, but the best part about it is its deliberate absence in some scenes, and at least once, a wonderful sequence where we think the scene has no music, that we are hearing background noise, until the rising volume makes it clear that it's the music.
- The sound was good all around, sound and foley guys - in a helicopter, linguist cannot hear what the other passengers are saying, and neither can we, until she put on the headphones; the machine racket becomes muted as she does so, and we can hear what she hears, and hear her join the conversation. We are given her POV via sounds, even though the visual directing is not obviously doing that. Sneaky. Also, in a movie about Communicating with The Other, this is beautiful foreshadowing.
I'll stop now, having gushed enough. I went and saw it twice, if that tells you anything.