Does Arrival beat Interstellar in its own game?
For a sci-fi movie to be labelled “this year’s Interstellar” is akin to having a gleaming medal pinned to the directors forehead for all to see. But Denis(the s is silent) Villeneuve’s Arrival has managed to up the game in ways unimaginable. Being a fan of Villeneuve’s earlier works such as Enemy, Prisoners and Sicario…I did have a certain amount of expectations preset. And to match that required a film that makes you obsessed enough to delve deep into its cerebral cobwebs.
Enemy was an example how the experience of cinema does not end with the film. It lingers on till you’ve analysed various interpretations to reach (or not) a satisfying conclusion. Arrival might be way more direct in terms of its message, but spans to be way more profound than any earlier endeavours. Concepts of language, free will, causality are sewn into the fabric of non linear storytelling rather seamlessly.
A great part of Arrival accentuates the importance of language as cognitive tool to make sense of the world around us and beyond. A topic I passionately follow from a post I wrote last year to the current book I’m reading: The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker. It brings to light the principle of Linguistic relativity aka the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis on how language has the ability to rewire the brain. For a film to use that, not just as a device, but as a prime mover ingrained with the plot is quite remarkable.
Arrival starts off with the sudden appearance of 12 mysterious spaceships across the globe without wasting much time. Linguist Louise Banks(Amy Adams) and Physicist Ian Donnelly(Jeremy Renner) are recruited by the military to try and understand what it all means and why they are here in the first place.
But instead of intergalactic dogfights or some good ol’ Powerbook hacking, the crux of the plot rests on Dr.Banks and her life progressively intertwining with the mission.
As for performances, anyone who is not Amy Adams is pushed back to the shadows while she steers through like a brand new pickup truck. Jeremy Renner is only present for a single ‘aha’ moment and then sadly slinks back to his Hawkeye-like background-ness.
There are some breathtaking shots of landscapes with the levitating spaceships. Although a large portion of the film is spent in dull lighting or silhouettes, it does somehow manage to look pretty slick.
The music is mostly minimalistic and creates a palpable sense of anxiety mixed with the flood of an ambient landscape. Although it is really tough to beat what Sicario had managed with sound.
[Warning: Spoilers]
For all its uniqueness of its storyline, one can’t fail to draw parallels with various other plots that gently graze the surface on several aspects.
A major parallel can be drawn with Robert Zemeckis’ Contact(1997) which revolved around deciphering extra terrestrial instructions. Both also feature an attempt to sabotage the operation due to the fear of the unknown. Though Contact was primarily a metaphor for faith, Arrival is more about accepting the present even in the face of determinism.
The spaceships seem close to the monolith from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey(1968) enough to be a homage.
The non linear perception of time is quite similar to what is experienced by Dr.Manhattan in The Watchmen. The concept of time as a steady state, devoid of flow is the infinite self that the aliens and Dr.Banks thus perceive.
An alien species projecting their interest in global unification is something that had been dealt with in James Cameron’s The Abyss(1989).
The causal loop, a standard fare for time travel films, can be tied down to a healthy mix of 2014's Predestination and Interstellar.
The modes of communicating with an alien species through patterns and repeated learning, earlier seen in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).
There are several uses of symbols and motifs that run thematically through the movie. One of them is the circular alien language(though they look like coffee stains) symbolically referring to the Ouroboros:
A state of endless flow, which means the same, irrespective of direction and orientation just like time. [I also happen to have it tattooed on my back, hence resonating a lot more for me]
And sure, due to the nature of the film there are bound to be comparisons with Interstellar. But Nolan’s fare in this game had an air of grandeur to it with emotional hues pulling from every edge with its message of love transcending dimensions. Arrival plays it way more subtly shedding any attempt on being grandiose to deliver its message.
Interstellar is the three act play with an opulent set and an emotional roller coaster. Meanwhile Arrival is a monologue performed under the light from a single bulb. And yet it manages to have a similar effect.
And that’s why Arrival comes out triumphant from this ring.
