Beginning - Middle - End. That is the way things go. You are born, you live, you die. But what if you knew what was going to happen? Would you do everything the same way again, or would you try to fix your mistakes? Surprisingly, this is one of the few themes that Arrival, Denis Villeneuve [Prisoners (2013), Sicario (2015)]'s newest creation deals with. You see, Arrival is not a regular sci-fi film. It is a story about the importance of communication and our ability to make choices that would change our lives, let alone the whole world. But let me start from the beginning.
We first meet Louise (Amy Adams), a linguistics professor, who is approached by the army when 12 mysterious UFO's appear at various - and irrelevant to each other- parts of the planet. The army wants her - a celebrated language expert- to try and communicate with the aliens that have been found in the spaceship. As Louise accepts this extremely difficult job, she is assisted by a scientist, Ian (Jeremy Renner) who considers this occasion a tremendous opportunity to expand humanity's knowledge on several subjects including space travel. However, as Villeneuve's slow-burning films have shown us, getting from point A to point B is not a simple matter in real life. The interpretation of the aliens' language is - and should be treated as- a hard nut to crack. Moreover, when this comes in contrast to the humans' inability to find some common ground to work together for the best, such things become even more complicated. 
Reading this synopsis, you might think that Arrival is not a movie for the masses, but that is not true. It might not be a popcorn flick but this is exactly what sci-fi should be; not a blockbuster full of explosions and fast monosyllabic words, but a movie that makes you think about the what-if's and the would-be's, just as science does. What is more, Villeneuve uses the cinematography, the music and the production design in a way that achieves to create a daunting atmosphere, making the audience anticipate every next moment.
When the end credits roll, the movie might have ended but at the same time the story feels incomplete- not in an unsatisfying way, however. No matter what, life always goes on. There is no beginning, middle or end. There is only life and what we do with it. Arrival is full of ideas like that and this is what makes it different than other sci-fi films of recent years. It is a thought-provoking movie that treats a subject, which has been touched numerous times in the past, quite differently; not only by telling a new story but also by commenting on humanity's weaknesses and attributes.
0 σχόλια :
Post a Comment