I don't understand why every movie critic somewhat overlooked the brilliant soundtrack of this movie. It fueled the visual and made the experience of watching this movie so soothing, I felt like the whole time I was in a light meditation state. Edit: RIP Johan Johansson. Your music gave millions something beyond this world. Your life was worth it.
Arrival is one of the few movies i wish i could forget over and over so i can watch it for the first time again over and over. the incredible feeling of watching it the first time, of realizing she is remembering her future like that, it was incredible. one of my fav movies ever.
This is how I feel about Incendies (another Denis Villeneuve film). First viewing packs a punch that I wish I could experience again for the first time. However, that feeling of the initial impact has stayed with me years later. Polytechnique is another one of his films that has stayed with me for years. It is a more linear story with no twist (it is based on the real life massacre at Polytechnique school in 1989) but the residual effects will stay with me for the rest of my life. Denis Villeneuve knows how to tell a powerful story in a powerful way.
Not for me. My experience of seeing Arrival for the first time can be summed up by Louise's oft repeated statement, "I don't understand." And following Bernard Lonergan's Transcendental methodology (experience, then understanding, then judgment of value, and finally decision), understanding is a vital step in this process. By the third time I saw the movie, I was in tears for much of it. By the way, I was very impressed with the author of this video. Excellent analysis. My complements!
Horacio Iaboni you comment should have way more likes but I bet ppl don't even understand the point your making. took me a minute as well... buy when I did wow. mind blowing
The moment I heard that line, I knew it was a reference to Louise's book. It killed me that even she didn't see the connection. From the moment the line was read to her on the helicopter, it was so obviously a Chechov's gun line.
I rewatched Arrival last night and this was the first time I noticed that Louise's line from her dissertation as quoted by Ian here at 4:20 reveals a huge part of the plot: "Language (..) is the first weapon drawn in conflict". At the film's climax, we realize they refer to their language when the aliens say 'weapon'. The key to the film's plot was hidden in plain sight, in the first act of the movie. What an elegant approach to screenwriting.
This movie floored me in a way that a lot of films fail to do. The cinematography, the acting, the score, the concept, execution, and overall filmmaking just proves to me that this is one of the best sci-fi films ever made. Denis is a genius. 10/10.
King of Wakanda could there be a second since the reason of the aliens arrival was to teach the language of time to the humans so then when the day approach they could help them.
My main takeaway from the movie which was honestly pretty mind blowing and powerful to me while I was watching the ending unfold: We aren't so different from Louise. Although she can see the details of the tragedies of her future, without the details we still all know what's coming for us. Namely, Death. Pain and loss and heartache. Yet we choose to live our lives anyway. Despite knowing how it all ends, we still glean meaning from the living itself. I really liked this movie.
k14pc While watching this video I realized the strong similarities Arrival has to my other favorite film, Eternal Sunshine (I know, cue eyeroll). I love both films for the point you just made. It’s soothing and harrowingly inspiring to see soberingly relatable characters pursue these pleasures even while knowing the painful outcome. To me it calls into question my hard feelings, resentments, and heartache from past experiences and allows me (or commands me) to make peace with them and reflect on them with gratitude. I know of very few movies that can inspire that emotional process in me.
I thought the film was horribly self aggrandizing. It thought it was 2001 A Space Odyssey and that it was a deep and intellectual treatment of big ideas. In reality it dealt so superficially and so imprecisely with those ideas and was so self complementary about that same treatment that I just couldn't stomach it. It was "smart" scifi for the masses where the only way the main characters could be construed as smart was by surrounding them with caricatures of stupidity that they could refute.
The thing is: it's not really about the sci-fi or linguistics, it's more about humanity. I guess, the ideas it dealt superficially were not the main theme. It's a comtemplative kind of movie, I like it, but I get your point.
I can still remember the reaction I had the moment Louise says "who is this child?" It's like when a magician fools you in a way you didn't see coming.
It's as if some demon were saying: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more..." Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?... Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?" [Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence - The Gay Science]
You know, I won't lie, sometimes I don't know what you're talking about, but you sound sophisticated and its soothing to hear the deciphering of films/people.
As I watching this video not really understanding what's it about I thought about how ironic it is considering the first point he makes here ("a true thing, poorly expressed, is a lie).
Did anybody else feel profoundly affected by the movie in a good way? I remember sitting in that movie theater and thinking how our brains construct our visions of the future in the same way it remembers our past. It is in a way, like we are pulling "memories that could be" into being. The movie does using "flashforwards" disguised as flashbacks and turns the whole story timeless. The firsts line she speaks really contains her whole experience.
That's quantum mysticism, 21st century snake oil. Quantum mechanics has nothing to do or say about human consciousness. Some conmen misinterpreted the double slit experiment and repackaged Tony Robbins as a "new science".
I loved how the ending of this movie is in fact hidden in plain sight in the very first opening sentences of the movie. "I though this was the beginning. Memory is a strange thing. We are bound by time. By its order."
This movie was so outstanding - I don't understand why they didn't get ALL the Academy Awards, even the ones that wouldn't apply, such as best animated short and best use of a chainsaw.
Wow, I got emotional watching this because it brought back all the emotions I had in the movie and this coverage was only 7mins. This film can be interpreted so many ways, even from the nirvana perspective, once we realize the suffering of life, then we can find the beauty in the moments. One of my all times favourites this one.
One study i read proposed that one of the reasons why Japan lost WW2 was their language. We think using words. The Japanese lacked many words with nuances needed to think imaginatively among other things. It was an interesting idea.
@@TheBelrick I had a German teacher who always said language is a reflex of how people think, how the brain works. So learning a new language is unlocking a new way for the brain to work. When I watched this movie for the first time, this teacher's speech came to my mind. Reading these comments now, again.
Truly a very emotional movie. I still remember 3 friends who kept for hours discussing on what happened and how. The music is one of the most beautiful movie music I have came across.
@@vikalpverma9750 Curious ; have any of your friends rewatched the movie since and did your views change? Oh and you are right, the music is excellent and probably half the movie. People under estimate the score's impact on a film IMHO. Take the film UP, i still dont like it mostly because the score depresses and annoys me.
@@TheBelrick not sure about my friends but I have rewatched the movie many times. The score is just amazing, I go through the album quite often. It took me 2 re-watch to fully understand the movie.
@@ALucas73 Does he need to? It doesn't take away any relevance, if you produce just one piece to culture that is relevant. Ted Chiang will be in my Hall-of-Fame forever for this. :)
@@Kid_Ying Yeah, I got that. I tried to tell him, that he may try to be content with what he got instead of asking for MOAR. ;) Good work takes time and many writers lose quality if they start mass producing.
@@ALucas73 Ted Chiang is not at all guilty of "mass production." He has nothing at the novel length, but two collections of stories, "Stories of my Life and Others" from 2002 and "Exhalation" from 2019. He published his first story, "Tower of Babylon" in 1990, which earned the Nebula for best novella, and to this date he has published only 17 stories, which is a little more than one every other year or so. The first collection includes "Story of My Life," the tale adapted for "Arrival," which won the Nebula and Theodore Sturgeon awards for best novella. That collection is also available in a movie tie-in version.
That sentence is nonsense. A "lie" is delberate, poor expression is not. A true thing poorly expressed may not be understood by the listener, may be misconstrued, and may no longer be "true". It is not however, a lie.
@@chrisantoniou4366 Don't even try it. It would seem that this channel is based on making vague, cool sounding points made so that the audience can interpret them in however neat way they prefer.
@@weirdguy4948they can’t get it right,they confuse how language isn’t just made up of logic and ignore the mystical experience that is “understanding “ ,I wish they had read Wittgenstein
I loved the movie. I loved the fact that for once there was a sci-fi move without constant explosions caused by the invariably imperialistic alien race.
Hooga to me it makes sense that if an alien race has the technology to travel, most likely their intent will be indeed "imperialistic". look what European countries did in colonial times.
Conversely, Imperialism was born because it allowed the wrestling of resources from other cultures, and then transported them back to the imperial capital. A species with unlimited access to the cosmos would have little reason to invade another inhabited planet when millions of uninhabited ones are teeming with the resources they want.
those are mostly not sci fi, there is huge difference between fiction inspired by science and fiction inspired by fantasy. Solaris is sci fi, transformers action adventure fantasy, Contact is sci fi, Star Wars is space fantasy.
Honestly the first 5 minutes of this movie had me feeling like that one montage in UP. Then the rest of the movie had me like whoa. It's so crazy how a movie can be about aliens and emotions so masterfully intertwined. Like DAY-UM. When the plot twist hit me, I had to pause and just walk around to wrap my head around it. What an amazing movie.
How is it crazy that a story about aliens can be emotionally strong? Science fiction writers have been doing that for centuries now, you just have yet to seek out the gems of books :) I will say that a lot of science fiction, especially hard science fiction, sacrifices character in favor of either plot or the scientific concepts they feature though, but not always.
what's even more sad is that Costello and Abbott knew that abbott would be losing his/her life in order the humans to help their race in 3000 years. Knowing that they will be going on a mission that will cost one of them their life made it even more perfect.
@Alexander Supertramp ~ the fundamental question of the movie was, if you knew the future was filled with grief would you change it? Abbot clearly didn't want to change it.
As great as the screenplay (and the source material) for Arrival is, it could've turned out horribly in the hands of a lesser director. Denis just understands what works in a scene and what doesn't. I love how long he drew out the scene where Amy Adams is about to see the aliens for the first time. It perfectly captured what that moment would probably feel like - the anticipation, the sense of wonder, but also the anxiety and the knot you'd get in your stomach. More than any other alien movie, that scene perfectly portrayed the feeling of "holy shit, I'm about to talk to a fucking alien."
TJ Hastie agreed! I almost teared up at this scene simply because it is the kind of tension I've always wanted for a first contact scene. This movie gave us what we wanted. It was, amazing.
Ahh that music gives me chills. I love Arrival so much. I lost my partner a few years ago and this film, featuring aliens and time weirdnesses, speaks to my grief better than pretty much any other film other than The Fountain. Annihilation is pretty good too. But this film is perfection. One of the strongest feelings I have about my partner (other than raw loss and pain, and being isolated in a world no one else understands) is the knowledge i would do it all again, even knowing how it ends, it is worth this awful pain to have known him and been close to him. And time works very differently once you have been through a loss like that. I have never seen grief explored through this lens, at least not with such extraordinary results 🖤
That's a deep realization knowing the pain at the end but its dwarfed by the moments of love and joy enough to be willing enough to do it exactly the same way. I'm sorry for your loss but glad for the love you had. If I may make another suggestion, cloud atlas 😉💗
turtleturbo1025 So you’re saying it’s a stupid film because you couldn’t fallow it? What makes it pretentious? I think you two might be missing the point of the film which isn’t very direct though and I feel you have to give it your own meaning so I can understand that if you don’t get the movie or didn’t enjoy it then you probably don’t give it its own meaning.
William Smith lol dude the movie is basic and misleading ! And why would aliens just help this broad who’s very selfish ! ? It’s easy to follow but I just thought it was a dumb movie. They should’ve just left it as a short story. Aliens used her to save the world and interpret the language. She was selfish for bringing a child into the world who didn’t have long to live. You mean to tell me these aliens couldn’t speak English or know what English letters are? Lol movie was dumb just shot beautifully that’s it
If you have not yet watched this film, *STOP WATCHING NOW. HUGE SPOILERS.* Go watch this masterpiece of a film. Experience it. Then come back and watch this.
You know, Villeneuve Started in the 90's by making a movie per week in Course Europe-Asie (a race around the world where the participants needed to make a movie per week on their own), then he made 10 movies before Arrival. This is a craft you learn by practice, passion and time. So don't be affraid. Make one. Then an other and an other. Eventually, if you have the tallent for it, you will be making good movies.
Arrival, Interstellar and even the Martian, hold a special place in my heart because they feel like a celebration of science. I love movies that build amazing and effective stories out of real scientific principles and in interstellar and arrivals case, their handling of time and relativity is really out there but still grounded in real scientific theory and handled perfectly. I’d never even considered linguistics as a form of science before I watched this film but within minutes I was intrigued and I wanted to know more
Three of the best almost-might-be-hard-sci-fi films of all time! (True hard sci-fi is nearly impossible to market in our current society) I highly recommend Robert Zemeckis and Carl Sagan's film Contact. Like the others, it takes a few creative liberties with the science, but also like the others, it is much more faithful to real scientific concepts and the true spirit of scientific exploration than all the fantasy-pretending-to-be-sci-fi films making up most of the box office these days. The climax makes me cry simply because of the sheer beauty of what the main character discovers about the universe. And I cry in a lot of other scenes too.😉
I just saw the movie and I hate myself that I didn't watch it on cinema, I am lost of words!! Such an amazing film and performance of Amy Adams, and the Academy is SO shitty that didn't nominate her for an Oscar!
Who cares about Oscar nominations? It's a wank-fest for Hollywood. If Arrival was about a gay black man learning to communicate with aliens about how living in LA is the greatest feeling ever, it'd be a clean sweep at the Oscars.
Spoiler alert? One of the concepts i took away is that since she was living and thinking a non-linear existence, she knew that her child would be born with a rare genetic disorder that would give her a short life but she chose this life anyway. Although tragedy could strike anytime it was a simple decision to make. It gave me a sense of contentment with whatever life has to offer because even with the bad comes all of those unforgettable experiences that you would never trade. Lingering on the bad and you lose sight of all of the moments worth living.
For me it was like she had no other option. Future, present and past were the same for her. One moment her child wasn´t born, and the next she was dead. Also, it seemed to me that the love and pain she felt made easier for the aliens to make her understand. In some of the most special scenes, she remembers her daughter and understand something more. And she understands why one of the aliens chooses to die anyway, even when it could´ve survived. Feelings where their mutual language, and for her, her daughter was her entire live, and the reason she does everything.
Seeing this video posted made me finally get off my ass and watch this film just so I could watch it unspoiled. Best decision I've made all year. Thank you.
The fact that she still chooses to live that life with Donnelly despite knowing their daughter will die and he will leave her makes me cry everytime. That and 'On the nature of daylight'.
Does she really have a choice though? She can see the future, she can see what she will do, but that doesn't mean she has free will. What she sees has already happened and will inevitably happen.
@@abstract5249 of course, but that still doesn't make the 'decision' easy. How hard it must be for her knowing how this will all play out. Then she accepts her/their fate.
Why do people hate philosophy so much? I see a lot of people with similar sentiments to philosophy as yours, but I don't understand why. Could you enlighten me, as to why you personally find it bullshit? I am genuinely curious.
I loved this movie, and your analysis of it made me understand so many things I'd missed. A point you didn't mention is something I saw on another analysis: Louise can see her whole future, included the tragedy in it, but decides to live it anyways. A somewhat beautiful message of hope.
She lived her entire life knowing what would happen. She made the same decisions knowing that in the end her daughter would die and Hawkeye would leave her...It is so fucking sad and brilliant.
I actually felt this detracted from the ending because it's so egocentric. They ignore the whole ethical question of whether it's right to bring someone into the world knowing they'll suffer terrible pain, family breakdown and ultimately die young. I'm not trying to inflict a judgment here but the film ignores the issue entirely. Worse, they make it clear that this is the reason "Hawkeye" left her and it's a pretty fucking major reason but it's treated as if he were just being puerile.
Agreed. As a comment on other films, Arrival works. But as a story with characters you are supposed to care about, it fails on every level. It's clearly alluded that Louise keeps her daughter's death to herself, which is the most self-centred decision I could ever think of.
The idea in the short story was that she couldn't change her future, which I think makes it more brave. I prefer to look at the movie from that angle, since I like the movie and want a coherent plot in my head whenever I think of it.
That's my interpretation too. For me, the realization that the movie's timeline wasn't linear came before the movie showing that the main character starts to grasp the language (and thus a simultaneous view on her timeline. So I like to think that when she comes to the university to teach she is sad, because she "subconsciously" already lived through her husband divorcing her and her daughter dying. And later in the movie she can fully see it but still decides to live it because she cherishes the good moments.
I don't usually comment but after watching this video there is no doubt in my mind that this is the best channel on youtube. I loved this film and I appreciate your deep analysis and commentary. Keep up the good work and please do more video essays on films.
Such a wonderful film. The realisation about her child is so profound for me. I had a death of someone I love and I would happily and willingly repeat meeting them again even knowing they would die. Anyway... Amazing film.
I second Mike. My condolences. I also wanted to add that this is one of the lovelier interactions I’ve seen on youtube, and I’m happy to have stumbled upon it.
I remember the first time I watched this film..... Because less than a minute or two into it....................I was crying. And I rarely cry from movies. It honestly startled me. Yes, it's sad from the jump...but why? I couldn't even explain what it was. I'm not a parent. But somehow starting the movie off RIGHT AWAY with pure existential grief....hit me hard, when I least expected it. I knew from that moment on, after I'd collected myself, that this was going to be a special film. And I wasn't wrong about that. It's a masterpiece of modern science fiction. When I found out the director was making the Blade Runner sequel....I was thrilled. And he absolutely did not disappoint. That film is also brilliant and worthy of the source movie that inspired it.
I've noticed a bunch of people saying that audiences did not turn up for this movie. Not so. It made $203 million worldwide ($101 million in U.S.) on a $47 million budget. That's 20 million viewers in theaters, roughly, and a profitable film.
@@indowithbadenglish5677 Expectations of showing typical absurd explosions throughout the 2 hour movie? Yeah sure it would have disappointed a lot of marvel (just for reference) fanboys and I'm glad it did.
@@robinsingh6408 yeah me too,.. i'm also glad but feel sad in the same time.. i feel sad for them who can't understand movie with such profoundly deep meaning and full of thoughts like this. They sure missed a lot, much more than they realize. And this movie can't offer them simplicity too.
@@briantomassoni8928 Calm down there little fella, I used MCU fans just as a metaphor for all the kids who'd watch an awful movie even after poor adaptation of characters, plot holes and fuck-all logics like a sheep. You prefer romcom, drama, action? You go ahead buddy but you're the one who set false expectations from this movie, the movie never wanted or tried to get you 'hyped', it gets you thinking. You're just in the wrong place. You want a movie with action and which will get you hyped? Just watch any other movie from the 2000s till now, they're all the same. The concept of time interpretation with linguistics is fairly original to a 'super-strong villain appears who beats the hero, by the end of the movie the hero beats him'. That's not my taste anymore but you do you but I won't go as far as watching the film and then bitching about the film based on mere speculations, not worth my time.
Elmer Son Elmer Son Elmer Son the reveal at the end was basically another form of the ending of inception with the whole "old man waiting to die alone". Traveling back in time. Remembering past selves.
I found it boring and self-absorbed myself. Have never bothered watching it again and most people in the theater felt the same afterwards. Yes it had deep philosophical undertones, but I thought it was poor sci-fi and anticlimactic
@@PCGGC I also did not care for the movie. I love Denis, I can see that this is a very well-made, well-edited movie with great set design, etc....it just didn't do it for me.
@@PCGGC I felt the same and even tried watching it 4 more times just to make sure I didnt miss anything. Nope - got the same thing each time - disappointment. The whole movie is based around her choice to have a kid even though she knew the kid would die. Big woop.
It was a mediocre and pretentious film that excites only liberal minds. It's fatal flaw is the lack of entertainment value. The characters are flat, boring and rarely get to express themselves within the film. (and of course there is really no action in the film but pick one. characters or action) . All because the shock and dismay of the arrival over shadows EVERYTHING like the director had suicidal thoughts so must everyone within the film. But yes it was an EXCELLENT work of pretentious and boring moody cinema.
I absolutely agree. Many may disagree with me, but I truly feel this is one of the greatest films ever created. It impacted me personally, in a way that very few other media has.
@@machiavellianos Thats somehow a very emotionally touching movie, thanks to its themes and how the soundtrack works with it. And while its not some crazy difficult movie as some claim, the unlinear puzzle creates tension that makes it interesting all the way, so usual action is not needed Everything is complemented by good visuals too. Easily my #1 fav modern movie
This film is without a doubt head and shoulders above many of the other movies out there right now. The cinematography is just spectacular. The plot was very good; it was suspenseful, intelligent, engaging. Everything that this story needed to be it was. This is a film that leaves you looking at not only people, aliens, humanity, but life itself in a completely different way.
*+Nerdwriter1* There's one thing that bugs me. At 3:15 you say that the aliens, being able "to see all the time at once", "use that skill to access future events to influence her present". That phrasing seems to indicate that the aliens are deliberately implanting images from her future into her mind. If that's the case I would disagree. According to the Sapir Whorf hypothesis the structure of a language would shape your thoughts and behavior. She acquires the capability to see time as nonlinear, seeing images and glimpses of her future, from learning the universal language. She gains this skill gradually the more she learns to write and read the logograms. It's by the end of the movie, when the aliens give her the full scope of this language, that she's then able to interact with her future. With their help, she gains the capability to access future events and influence her present. The aliens enabled her to do so by gifting the language but did not implant these visions. Once she had that skill she made the choice of using it. It might seem like a minor difference of interpretation but in my opinion this relates to free will. "If you could see your whole life laid out in front of you, would you change things?" We actually don't know for sure who much of the future the aliens are capable of seeing. Is it really "all the time at once"? I'd rather extrapolate from Adams capabilities after she learns the integrity of the language and infer that they can only see and interact with glimpses of their future. I think the aliens took the risk of coming to Earth and give this tool because they knew they would need help or knowledge in the future. Humanity made the choice to accept it. *Great review! Until now, it's the first one I saw that's an actual analysis of a major theme in the movie. The parallels you've pointed out are compelling. And now that you've talked about the Kuleshov effect I'll be more attentive to these montages in the future. I'm always amazed by films that are able to convey so much with so little words.*
Spoilers. That is partially what he means, in the film, there is a theory that a language shapes the way we think for example imagine a language where North south east west is the only words to describe directions, left and right are nonexistent. That language would cause you to always know your north and south, as well as you, know your left and right. So in the movie by learning the language of the aliens Amy Adams learns to see through time so the gift the heptapods gave her was language in itself. That is why when the alien states you have weapon she realises she can see all of time and the movie starts showing more and more of the way she pictures time.
the cinematography of Arrival is stunning and perfectly structured. The music along with the image conveys both a sense of peace and chaos at the same time. And a sense of relief and the continuation of the normal life at the end. absolutely amazing film, highly recommend.
I don't have time to read over 3000 comments to see if anyone else realized this... but the movie is NOT ABOUT TIME TRAVEL. It is about MEMORIES. The aliens have memories in the past and future. They knew we would help them in 3000 years because they remember it that way. As the movie progresses Dr Banks is experiencing more and more MEMORIES of the future. She is NOT time travelling. Add to this that she is special because she is able to do this. She makes a conscious effort to remember the future when she remembers what the Chinese leader told her she said. This was a leap for her. To deliberately access those memories and use them, instead of just experiencing them. Knowing this... she can remember her daughter, but can she do something about it? I believe she can, but chooses to still have the child because it is better to have the child and make the most of it. It is said to us that her husband left because of what she told him. As explained in the video he blamed her for not telling him about their daughter's fate sooner... as in before they conceived. Because had she told her husband about the fate of their daughter he would have chosen not to have it. Then giving new memories for the future.
what confused me about this movie is we saw flashbacks/forwards? before she met the aliens. I thought that start of the movie was her mourning her dead child. wiki mentions the aliens need humans help in 3000 yrs , but I did not get that from the movie, so I must have dozed off a few times lol
celery66 I think that's one of the main meta in the the movie. You are perceiving time as linear, when the idea of Time in the movie is non-linear; the Past and the Future both happens at the present. Note that Present is also (happens in) the past and also the future. So when you saw the "memory" of her daughter dying (at your Present), you are seeing her future (because of the non-linear time perception)
This movie made my brain hurt. I love it it is easily one of the best movies I have seen. I'm still baffled that Arrival or Hacksaw did not win best picture. Two different movies but both movies made you think and were beautiful movies in the way they were crafted
I hate emotional movies. I like action. I hate love stories. Arrival is not something I thought I'd love, but it's probably in my top 5 favourite movies now, at least top 10. It was visually pleasing, emotionally heartbreaking yet heartwarming, stunningly well done, expressed perspective and ideas seemingly perfectly, and was just so well executed and soothing in a way that I just loved it. I love analyzing it, but I also love just watching the movie. It's just an excellent movie.
Nalaxy You're really dismissing how beautiful that movie was. It's not about just a boy being gay, but about masculinity, abuse, identity, and how these things have such strong affects within black communities. The scene where Black tells Kevin that he hasn't been touched since that night on the beach is heartbreaking. Not just that he hasn't been sexual with anyone else, but that he hasn't let anyone get that close to him emotionally either. The performances were top notch, it deserved all the awards it received.
Abhishek Srivastava I'm not saying it wasn't a deep, emotional movie I'm just saying the people who voted on best movie said "so we got this alien movie but then we got this movie about the struggles of 2 gay black men-" and then everyone yelled MIDNIGHT because it's 2017 so we can't have anyone thing were against gays, or were racist they probably didn't understand most of the movie anyway. Like how in some scenes there is more blue present witch symbols them expressing there true feelings. But it's hard to say witch one is "better" because it's all option anyway. Sorry for any bad grammar or spelling errors I'm texting on mobile and spell checks a bitch
I know right! If only the Heptapods. Where Black & Gaym. Then Arrival would have been swimming in Oscars. Well that & the fact. That the Heptapods didn't want to be forced fucked by Harvey Weinstein ;)
I watched this movie with my boyfriends family and was in awe. Such a wonderful film. Unfortunately I was the only one who liked it. When we talked about it afterwards I had to debate with 5 people who didn't like it. They thought it was pretentious and didn't achieve what it wanted to. Total bummer. But it makes me so happy to see video like this about arrival and to read all the comments here from people who feel like me : )
I haven't met anybody who didn't like it. Not everyone thought it was a masterpiece, but the worst review I've heard was "I really enjoyed that." And I've also heard a fair few along the lines of "I can't believe what I just saw and it changed my life in a profound way."
Haters always looking for something to hate. This movie is amazing, it is completely different to any other movie I have ever watched, very original. It gives another perspective to language and in the end the meaning of life. The character Amy plays decides to have her child even though she knows she is going to die, she chooses love over grief. Awesome movie and awesome video about the movie!
lol original. have you even watched close encounters of the third kind? it may try to convey a brilliant message, but the fact is that it's buried beneath tons of clichéd characters, plot flaws and nonsensical acting.
+Pedro Martins jesus Christ you're a fucking idiot buddy. Get it through your skull that alien movies can be different and be original.Just cuz something shares a subgenre doesn't mean it isn't original. Just cuz you're a hater doesn't mean you need to make things up and embarrass yourself
Jakeb Damwyk insulting me is not going to help you prove your point, only prove your own stupidity. The approach to language is nothing new. If casting Adams and throwing around a ridiculous plot about teaching language to aliens through a white piece of paper and parrot like imitation is being original then I don't know what to say anymore.
Connor Zola I saw Rogue One, it was entertaining... but the seriousness of the film... made it more "real" than sci-fi. it just matched better to my taste/mood. the other films are great movies as well. but it lacked the serious tone i needed.
Me too, kellyvtec. The direction and music made me uncomfortable and led me to empathise with Louise so I felt both the tragedy in her story and her acceptance of it. I was genuinely surprised by the plot reveal and cried like a baby. This is one of my favourite movies ever and I've seen a few.
Neil Creamer so much of this movie's tone made it so meaningful. it's hard to explain why, but it connected to me on more just than entertainment. Thought provoking and emotional. if you liked this movie's tone, you might enjoy Secario as well.
Neil Creamer Neil Creamer so much of this movie's tone made it so meaningful. it's hard to explain why, but it connected to me on more just than entertainment. Thought provoking and emotional. if you liked this movie's tone, you might enjoy Secario as well.
It's a short story. Villuneuve is the screenwriter. I would give the same credit to both people since this is hard to adapt let alone visualise and present it on screen
@@saipanbrad The American soldiers with their heads filled with Alex Jones' BS were the villains. The Chinese answered to the incorrect translation the same way the Americans were about to.
micanikko The movie is about language.The ending is really the start, and she named her daughter Hannah. It was just my impression after seeing the film.
I though this movie was a lot smarter and better than Interstellar (btw, this channel does podcasts but on our main channel storytellers we do similar film analysis as Nerdwriter, sorry for pluggin but maybe some of you are interested)
I had to sit in the cinema for 10 minutes after the film finished as I was so blown away that I couldn’t drive safely. The music still moves me to tears. What a film.
Although, I share your feeling of being profoundly affected, I could not have been sitting around for that long 😅 The cleaning, disinfection staff immediately moves in so that the hall can be ready for the next screening.
Kristin Nguyen I wanted to like it more, but I felt the cutaways to her future memories hurt the film immensely. They needed that wasted time to better explore the language decoding, as well as more interaction with the other countries. They preached being more connected and open with the rest of the world but never showed us how any of the other countries were handling the situation. Right when they could have we'd get a 1:30 Slo mo cut to her with a baby instead of her interacting with and helping the other countries. I left the theater disappointed.
That's the point of the language... It helps us understand time as it is. Not a thing of past and future but a circle imagined in the circle like written language of the aliens. It has no beginning and no end and so do memories. They start as an idea and may end as past. Wich is really the point of the cuts to her personal life. Memories are something strong and powerfull (phone number) but in the essence the most personal thing we still have in this world.
Evan, I wanted to thank you. About one year ago I decided to take inspiration from you and started creating video essays every week, since then I've had a lot of success, a lot of fun, and have learned even more. So, thank you!
By the way, please remember to appreciate the source material of the movie, Ted Chiang's short story "Story of Your Life". Such a wonderful work, complicated and charming. The movie does a great job for sure, but the original text is something else.
I know it received mixed reviews on amazon and Metacritic, yet it was the first movie in a long time that gave me goosebumps at the climax of the story.
Metacritic can be a good gauge for a lot of things. However, I've noticed the smarter the media is that is being rated, the more inaccurate the ratings can be (from both users and critics).
To be fair, I almost never listen to audience reviews anymore. At any site, be it Amazon, Metacritic, IMDb, etc. Because, well... they're usually a cesspool of both extreme negativity and of people who just don't appreciate the art of film. Every single time a great film- especially a great genre film- comes out, all you'll find from casual audiences is nothing but malice and venom and hatred because they either don't understand or don't appreciate the artistry or challenge. It's sort-of ironic, because there's been an active push-back against critics the past few years... and yet, films like this show why critics are a very good thing and are necessary to balance out against audiences. Because sometimes, casual audiences just don't have the capacity to appreciate great things. It sucks to admit it, and I'm sure people would argue against that all day long, but it's true. (And very much to opposite is true- sometimes critics don't have the capacity to understand cheesy, fun movies.)
+MaximumMadnessStixon, very true. Arrival was a very unique experience for me, and is probably my favourite movie of that year, but my family found the movie boring. The Babadook and Mother! was also pretty interesting to me too, yet the popular consensus is that those movies suck. Mother! is such a strange movie that'd it's a movie that doesn't make any sense by conventional ways and leaves you completely at your interpretation, yet I can never say it's a bad movie and I really liked it. I couldn't get behind Blade Runner 2049 though. That movie was just a slogfest and was anything but a good movie to me, so I couldn't get myself to agree with critics on this.
Metacritic: 8.1/10 from both critics and user reviews, which Metacritic categrorizes as "Universal Acclaim" not "mixed reviews" WTF are you talking about?
This is well-made video and I'm glad you found so much in Arrival, but unusually I have to disagree with your analysis. You mention it as being 'a response to bad movies' but to me, Arrival is merely Villenueve failing to imitate the masters of editing through time (Malick and Tarkovsky come to mind). His discussion of time is merely limited to using that to structure his plot (i.e. to resolve the conflict at the end, for the opening sequence) and I don't think he manages to successfully distinguish the differing perceptions between linear and non-linear time. Films like Malick's The Tree of Life and Tarkovsky's Mirror show us how time itself shapes our memories and who we are without resorting to a) literal time travel and b) presenting linear time as the basis for the story. By telling the story in order but throwing the occasional scene out of order, he makes the film exploitative (a certain dead child subplot which opens the film is literally just lazy writing to force the audience to care for a character and is never thorougly explored ethically) and cruically, fails to make non-linear time truly appear non-linear. I'm also not convinced that Villenueve's use of the Kuleshov effect is any better / more innovative than any other film as it seems editing a film out of order naturally creates such an effect (and people like Nolan, Lynch, Roeg, Resnais have done it equally well, if not better). On the language front, it's a clearly liberal use of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and I'm not convinced that the linguistics really holds up beyond the most basic level that Amy Adams mentions (although I'm not a linguist, so I could be wrong). Also, I just found Arrival to be quite cheesy and lazily written in parts and certainly not a masterpiece. It felt like a simplistic alien contact story with Villenueve throwing in some subpar Malickesque sequences now and again to try and seem artsy. The truth is that to me, it's way worse than the arthouse movies it keeps on being compared to and mediocre as a sci-fi flick.
That's an interesting perspective. I found a lot of meaning in Arrival, most definitely partly due to the fact that I resonate strongly with Villeneuve's way of storytelling and because Amy Adams really floored me. But then again I haven't seen many other films on the subject(s), so this is a great reference for me to catch up on my movies! I didn't think the death of her child in the beginning of the film served as a way of creating sympathy for Amy's character rather than literally rushing us through that plotline and thus making it clear that this movie wasn't going to be about the death of this particular child on a smaller scale - exaggerated by the extreme close up shots during that first scene - but the concept of time (not timetravel - which imo was never a subject in Arrival) and pre-determination on a much greater scale. It's true that the movie doesn't weigh in on the ethics or morality of Louises decision, which I liked because these are shifting concepts and highly subjective. I personally appreciate when a movie makes room for individual exploration and self-discorvery rather then relieving the audience from an ambivalent thought process by indicating a certain direction.
Excellently put response! My own reaction to the beginning was "Really? They're saddling the lead with a dead child right off?". As to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, I'd be willing to give that a plot-device pass as long as the rest of the movie around it held up, but I never felt it did.
soundspy Thanks for the response. I understand the idea of rushing through the opening scene but the way it's presented seems intended to be emotional which is emotional manipulation and imo poorly done. The use of handheld close-ups shot beautifully reminded me a lot of modern-day Malick who, as I said, handles these topics better. I also understand that Arrival is not about time travel but the character's consciously are aware (at least, by the film's end) of when they looking at / thinking about the past, present or future. This awareness of time's position doesn't match truly non-linear thought processes and other films on the matter don't attempt to make explicit when each scene is set by the film's end. By doing so, Arrival tries to tell a story where all the memories fit together rather than presenting memory as it really is (disconnected fragments with no structure, often non-chronological and ordered by emotional similarity). On the ethical side, I wasn't requiring anything on it but the question of raising a child you know will die young is hinted at enough that they should have either gone further or cut those lines out. In all honesty though, if one removes the dying child subplot, none of the themes on time perception and communication seem to change, so why include it? There's certainly a lot to like about Arrival and Amy Adams is superb in it and if you find Villenueve's take interesting then I'm glad but it just didn't work for me.
bwana666 Interesting idea, I hadn't considered that. However, the film is seriously muddled if that is the case. As Louise can see the future, this (although incoherently presented) implies predestination and given that language supposedly determines your worldview, Louise seems to have no free will as her new (and possibly old) language and time perception prevent that. If the film is pro-free will, that is muddled. If the film is saying Louise's choice to have a child is free will that is unproven given the aforementioned predestination. If the film is neutral and we are meant to think about it, what exactly is the film bringing to this discussion? Free will exists even if we know the future. That seems illogical, unproven and too subjective for a film attempting to ground itself in science. If it's bringing forward the idea that free will exists in spite of language, that seems shallow and not satisfactory as an overarching theme if it is meant to be so. That's not to say these aren't there and you are welcome to interpret Arrival however you wish but I am not personally convinced that free will plays such a huge part in the film. Human subjectively regarding memory and time, perhaps, but in that case, I'd rather watch Tarkovsky's Mirror.
It's so sad to know that there are people out there who won't understand the symbolism and intricacies of this masterpiece because they've decided that it is "boring." 😭it was so beautiful
What's not mentioned in this video is that "Arrival" is based off the short story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. The film adaptation presents the questions and meaning behind the short story in brilliant fashion. If you loved this film, you MUST read "Stories of Your Life and Others" by Ted Chiang.
Yes, and I was blown away by this adaption. The book and the movie are quite different, but similar and same is the basic concepts, two brilliant works of art that both stands together and on their own. I'd highly recommend reading / seeing both.
Matthew, I ended up read Ted's short story soon after I watched the movie. Alexander, Agree that the book and the movie are quite different. Last year I collected ~180 minutes of video including three video clips of Ted speaking. It may be fun to watch. kempton.wordpress.com/2016/12/04/love-amy-adams-arrival/
i just think it's great that this was an alien movie that wasn't about war and saving the world or creepy glassy eyed aliens. because i've always hated the idea that 'if aliens exist, they must be like us'. Where we assume that we are the pinnacle of evolution and that aliens must have faces, must talk in a language that we can translate, must have legs and bones and blood. That they must want war, or to take over humanity. But who's to say those things aren't the REASON humanity hasn't gotten to interstellar travel? If conflict and war is the reason we are trapped in an endless cycle of regression and progression. Let's be real. If someone found a way to space travel, who would trust humanity with it? We've already shown, countless times, that when we find other life, we believe them to be 'less than human', and therefore, are capable of endless cruelty towards them. So why do aliens have to be just as cruel as us, if they are so superior?
There is a simple reason aliens would want war: if they evolved from bacteria to sentient being to a civilization, they must have experienced both conflict and cooperation. It a objectively obligatory since it mathematical. Humanity has gotten further than everything on this earth and is constantly advancing toward nterstellar travel, so conflict might be slowing humanity's progress but not trapping it into a cycle of destruction. Also "superiority" doesn't mean "good", whatever those 2 words mean they are not synonymes.
@@grawa4278 if they evolved and learnt from their own history enough that they got to another planet, surely they would know that war and cruelty is futile? im not arguing that they wouldn't have experienced history like we do, but if they are advanced, their scholars, philosophers and humanitarians must also advance with them. and i would argue, superior must mean good, because no smart person chooses violence and cruelty. if they are knowledgeable, if they have learnt and grown on their own planet, then they must have some measure of wisdom. if we say a territorial animals who murder its neighbors for more prey is natural but violent, who's to say the aliens wouldn't treat war the same way? a natural thing for humans, but ultimately, a savage and immature thing to do.
@@daniellelee7105 That might not be false, but that is also very simplistic. I agree that war is savage and all but that doesn't mean that someone with more capabilities will not do it. Also if they have philosophers they might be less listened to than expansionist or idk. There is very little reason why an alien species would want to declare war to us but thinking that someone moree advanced is always benevolent is probably not true.
@@grawa4278 yeah, but thinking that they will always have malicious intentions is also not always true. which was my point. the point is that we literally don't know how aliens are or could be. i was literally just saying that this version of aliens is way more interesting because it actually acknowledges that there could be things beyond our understanding. and it addresses the fact that our humane instinct to bomb the shit out of every possible threat is, in fact, very human and also very stupid.
I'd like to add something to the language part. Denis Villeneuve is a Québécois which is a french-speaking people that live in Canada. The Québécois are often confronted on deep identity debats by the fact that they are not independant and part of an english speaking country with a distinct culture than the one of the Québécois. Canadians and Québécois dont communicate together that much and aleniate each other which is why they are often referred as the two solitudes. I think this social situation in his home country has influenced this movie.
As a high school senior, I visited Quebec and Montreal as part of the French Club. Quebec was almost rabidly French oriented to the point I couldn't find anything in English. While Montreal was a lot more welcoming to me as an English speaker in a French enviroment. The guys in the club joked at how often we used "Parlez-vous anglais?" but while Quebec would ignore us or treat us as inferior because we asked if anyone spoke English, Montreal never did.
I fucking love this movie. Definitely makes you think, that's for sure. I love reading everyone's opinion on it and seeing all the different perspectives on the movie.
I think this movie was great, but the reason many don't seem to enjoy is if you didn't get into the personal story of the main character, you simply don't get as surprised by the ending and end up finding the movie dull.
I have to admit that I first was annoyed by the flashbacks and actually complained to my girlfriend and said "now they need to squeez those flashbacks in of some dead child to give this shallow character some depth". Amazing movie. Nerdwrite is obviously spot on with the association of emotions towards the scenes in the beginning.
My problem with the film is that I found the plot and climax to be too nonsensical. The cinematography, music and Amy Adams performance was breathtaking and intriguing enough, though I found it rather slow and without substance. While others I know found the 'twist' to be original and refreshing, I was just left confused and unsatisfied. I overall didn't enjoy the film, however still appreciate the concept and artwork from Denis Villeneuve and am of course still excited to see his work in the upcoming Blade Runner 2049
its not hard to find the movie dull if the movie begins with a kid dying of cancer. sure the illness is tragic, but our relations to that emotion are prematurely blank and some of us unfamilar with the experience.
"I don't like this movie" And the first reply is always something insulting their intelligence. This was my favorite movie of 2016, but god damn guys... Enlighten them on your opinion rather than straight up calling people dumb.
Why should we? They just post troll comments like, "Arrival sucked," and, "bad movie," as if they were scolding a dog, "Bad dog!" They give no reason for their opinion. They aren't interested in being enlightened. If they were, they would engage in a meaningful conversation. At least Timothy Huang and Saki Mcbill posted longer comments with actual substance as to what they didn't like about the movie. Unfortunately, one person said he "couldn't read all that" about Timothy's post and said he/she just skimmed it. Those people are presenting arguments for why they held the opinions they held. I respect that and think it's worth your time to discuss the film with them. People posting comments that say in their entirety, "It was slow and boring," or, "It's the biggest crap I ever seen," are not interested in thoughtful conversations.
Time travel as a plot device is fundamentally flawed with the rare exception that the grandfather paradox is handled appropriately. No causality, no story.
@@brainmind4070 It doesn't have anything to do with time travel. She simply has all the information. *That* doesn't influence anything, because she made all her decisions with that in mind. They even dumbed it all the way down to the basement with the example - hannah's life. It's not her making decision's in spite of knowing what they'll lead to; it's that that's her decision and she knows the effects to the full extent. This is not without *application*, like the husband leaving her or the main plot, but the entire thing exists simultaneously, with no way to change it. If she did change it, she knows all the effects. She only got that information because she understands the whole thing, knows the whole thing, made decisions based on the whole thing, which would violate causality to an outside observer. But only because the outside observer can't see the mechanics of what's happening as possible.
Well, this is the case because this movie has elements like non-linear storytelling and almost no action, and most of the complaints are about these elements. Calling people dumb might not be appropriate, but asking people to have patience to sit through whole plot, or judging the movie for what it is should be OK. Since it is internet, people can skip formalities.
appreciating this movie has nothing to do with intelligence or intellectual understanding, it has to do with emotional understanding. just read all the negative comments here-they mostly mention technical/intellectual problems such as plot holes, paradoxes, and writing (and, of course, they're rife with plenty of ad hominem). an intellectual bred in our age of information worship and cheap emotional gimmicks of Hollywood would of course hate this movie, because the grand reveal-and the entire overarching theme-appeals to the emotions first, not the intellect. the arguments surrounding this film could be described simply as scholars vs. artists.
After watching Arrival, I remember this novel I read two years ago, titled Slaughter House Five (or the Chldren’s Crusade) by Kurt Vonnegut. In the book, “Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time” and in one of his time travels, he met an alien specie called Tralfalmadores who do not see time as linear like we do. For these species, the past, future and present happens all at once, like a panoramic view. Billy Pilgrim wondered why they won’t help humanity since they know what would happen in the future, but they countered him and said “what difference would it make?” When Renner asked Adams “do you dream about their language?” I sort of thought that she became unstuck in time too, and did not think that she’s able to “see” the future. I think she “experiences” the future and then wakes up in the moment where she is, like Billy Pilgrim.
@@maureendullas2603 Yes, released a while ago on DVD and more recently on Blu Ray. Great movie and made quite an impact on me when I saw it as a youngster at the movies. www.imdb.com/title/tt0069280/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
This video is great. Arrival is my favorite movie of 2016, and you did a great job explaining it more, and talking about other aspects of the film. I loved the twist in the movie.
+Teemo ily Everyone does. There are just people who forgot that... A totally random but very lovely movie would still not be enjoyable. You need to have some form of logic in your movie otherwise it's just a mess. Don't get me wrong I liked the rest of the movie but don't get superpowers from learning a new language just because it rewires your brain... If they just said that the aliens gave her the power. Not through their language but in a traditional way than I'd be ok with it... (I hated the end of interstellar too)
I think "like" isn't the right word. I was deeply moved, puzzled and intrigued by a movie that made me actually use my brain for a change. This is a deeply emotional and haunting film that I will never forget even if I never watch it again.
This was one of the first movies that actually brought tears to my eyes from the sheer weight of its message, and the quality of its storytelling. My favorite movie, hands down.
Yep, masterpiece music for two masterpiece movies. But I didn't like that the song was kinda prolonged in the end of Arrival - it was played way too long (for the entire ending sequence, I think) for such a powerful piece of music. That is probably the only nitpick I have for Arrival, though. Great, great film.
and he nearly didn't let them use it as it's been used for two other films before. So glad he changed his mind, that score in the first sequence sets the tone for the whole film
Arrival is one movie that left me simultaneously disappointed and satisfied. I love how it defies all the tropes of the classic alien movie, but I wanted it to dive more in depth into the actual event of the aliens arriving unto earth, and more insight into how the other countries deal with them, other than the screens at the site. I know the whole point of the movie was for it it to be an intimate relationship with the main character, but I feel like seeing more of how everyone else reacted would have made the impact of her final act that much greater.
Mohammed Hamza Well that wasn't what was intended in the original story. The main focus was SUPPOSED to be with Amy Adams seeing the future, but they made the aliens more prominent in the film, so they didn't have too much to work with
That is exactly why I hate generic hollywood movies, which spoils a book/script by forcing it to change into something that hand-holds the audience like a toddler and explains everything to them. Arrival does it right to leave the unimportant things about the plot out. If you want some dumb but satisfying , watch pacific rim.
Agreed. And I'm a MASSIVE Villeneuve fan: he's my favourite working director right now. I think the problem lay in the marketing: the trailers made it seem like it would have far more action than it did. Not that I wanted a massive shit ton of action, mind you - I'd have settled for the same approach Villeneuve took to PRISONERS, ENEMY and SICARIO when it came to action, but the film was lacking on it because of the expectations the trailer created. I also found it slightly too cerebral for like 90% of the time, and it was only at the very end that it flooded you with emotion. I felt that those emotional beats should've been more interspersed throughout the overall narrative, but I really need to see it again to make a final judgment.
I couldn't breath by the end ... There are a lot of things to learn from this film, but the way this actress loved her daughter before she was born it is unthinkable, at the point that, she could change her present in order to have an healthy child, but the connection that she had with her in her premonitions, was so strong and meaningfull, that she decides to not change the future. I'm glad we don't know the future of our lifes It feels like we're protected.
In my opinion the fundamental flaw of the movie is ignorance of the free will. It's a leap of logic to accept that she can see all of her life at once and decide not to change it, and then if you choose to correct the future or just make different decisions (with every new decision there would come a new lifetime of future "memories") , that would be so intense that it would make anyone lose their mind.
yeah The book the movie is based on explores the idea of having minor omniscience like louise does and that effect on free will? She ends up feeling the push to do certain things that will lead to the future she sees. In a sense she is robbed of free will once she sees a future event, in that she can't act in a way that would violate that knowledge by making that event not come to pass.
@Qui Shuang do you not DO emotions or something? You sound like a child or a socio. People love who they love, there aint no switch dude. It's like this.. Do I decide to omit my daughter from existence for the selfish reason of not being sad. Or do I love my daughter and get to know her and be sad?
And where in the movie did anyone say she doesn't? After all, saving the world part had no impact on her having her child. So she can save the world and marry someone else and have a perfectly healthy child.
Woah jumping to conclusions too quick are we? There are plenty of fish in the sea and I know for a fact people can fall in love twice with different people. She is stupid for not looking for another possible future. Heck, even her future husband hates her after he learned the truth (just look at the flash backs). She won't omit her daughter out of existence, after all, her daughter never existed up till that point. All she needed to do is pick a different future.
Not enough people have seen this film. Not only is Arrival great science fiction, explaining source-less heartache and melancholia, as well as deja-vu as glimpses into impactful memories we haven't experienced yet, but it's a fantastic social criticism as well. Learn a new language and experience the world in a new way. Thanks for this breakdown.
Well.. the song that plays during the first and last scene is Max Richter's On the Nature of Daylight, which he wrote in 2004, and not as part of any film's score. The rest of the score is by Jóhann Jóhannsson, and imho it's pretty terrible. It's more noise than music, and though it is effective during the reveal of the aliens - it kind of sounds as unnatural as the Lovecraftian design looks - it misses everything else... I could go on and on about Richter's influence on Jóhannsson btw but that's really irrelevant
Arrival was the first movie which made me cry in so many years of watching movies. The song nature of life has meaning now and when I hear the song I tear up just like rn watching this video. thanks :)
'An idea, however profound it seems to you does not really exists until you can write it down' I disagree, that is just not true. The fact that you don't have the ability or the "language" to convey that idea into words does not mean the idea is not true. The fact that words are just made up from those ideas in the first place already proves that the quote contradicts itself. For example, in science, you can find that many of the 18th and 19th century physicists had plenty of ideas that they simply couldn't put it into math, but they sure were true and proven later on by 20th century scientists.
But they could obiously put it in word, and language to some extent can exist in image and memory, at least for the individual subject to think.A word is compose of a signifier and a signified. Ultimatly the signified can preexist but the understanding of the signified as one category, as something that exist, is more often than not rather arbitrary and artificial. And science, only referring and inspired by the personnal experience, without any form of language, would not exist. Keep in mind that language is not nescessaraly spoken.
galesx95 you're interpreting what he said as something else. If someone 200 years ago had an idea that they never shared with anyone, or had written down. That idea does not exist. You need some kind of written language to bring that idea to everyone else, to the world.
Brick ByBrick then how do u explain improvisational music and dance? Ideas don't need language language needs ideas, this is why I feel the premise of the film is really not profound at all. There's nothing cosmic or grand about language it's actually quite mundane and primitive, it limits human expression rather than expand it, it tries to objectify the abstract, thus the term "there are no words..." If all aliens had 2 offer me was a new language I'd be pissed, ppl do that on earth! ppl like George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry 😂
Exept the film did not created the theories on language. And dance or music can easily be explain as forms of language. You need to keep in mind that language can take visual (written) and oral (spoken). And the meaning of a dance or a song is created in the social world. They are not random noise or involuntary movment but are selected to fit a easthetic or to express certain feeling (and not ideas) that are created and codified with the composer (relating to his environment and often culture) but also the listener (relating to his).
I agree. That also completely disregards very rich and accurate (i.e. vetted and triple-checked) oral histories that go back much farther than written history. For example some aboriginal Australian oral histories go back literally 20,000 years and accurately detail real events that we've verified with anthropological/geological evidence. (I love Arrival and I liked this video, I just had a problem with that one statement for obvious reasons.)
"There is no thought without expression" This statement is ridiculous. What do people usually do when they are in deep thought? Nothing. They sit there... expressionless. I can't speak for others, but the vast majority of my thoughts are not expressed. In fact, I dare say that a person who is compelled to express every single thought would be unbearable company. "That an idea, however profound it feels to you, does not really exist until you can write it down or in some cases put it on film" Thoughts are, by definition, non-physical. They cannot exist physically. Words and works of art, like movies, are expressions, physical expressions, not the actual thoughts they are expressing. I think the above is an illustration of what Stephen Fry meant by "A true thing badly expressed becomes a lie"
hang on now, if the thought isn't expressed it dies with the thinker. To me it is sort of a "tree falls in the forest" sort of idea. So if the thinker never expresses the thought, never allows the thought to influence an action of expression, it is as if the thought never existed.
But when you are thinking you talk to yourself using a language. Expression doesn't mean that has to be write down in paper or said out loud. It makes a lot of sense to me.
But if you only "express" it to one or two people, it dies pretty quickly with them. And if they die before you do, it's as if you never expressed it in the first place, and we're right back where we started.
Another aspect of the film seems to portray language as a Mandelbrot set. From Louise's own inner monologue trying to understand her own emotions, through the difficulty of explaining her motivations to her own group, all the way up to trying to find common context with aliens from other dimensions, it was the same conflict shown at different levels of magnification.
![Can language change the way you think? [The Science of Arrival]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/lIPi3OiaG3I/mqdefault.jpg)
I don't understand why every movie critic somewhat overlooked the brilliant soundtrack of this movie. It fueled the visual and made the experience of watching this movie so soothing, I felt like the whole time I was in a light meditation state.
Edit: RIP Johan Johansson. Your music gave millions something beyond this world. Your life was worth it.
agreed
Do movie critics ever make an accurate review for a movie?
I agree, max richters on the nature of daylights (the theme playing in this video) is one of my favorite pieces of all time
The main theme is for originaly for another film call Gathaca
Esp that violin one. The supposedly soothing tone somehow made it so emotional and powerful in that epiphany scene of realization
Arrival is one of the few movies i wish i could forget over and over so i can watch it for the first time again over and over. the incredible feeling of watching it the first time, of realizing she is remembering her future like that, it was incredible. one of my fav movies ever.
Same. When she said, "Who is this child?" my jaw hit the floor. They just did it so damn well.
VERY well said 👏
Just like Louise you get to experience it again knowing everything that’s about to happen
This is how I feel about Incendies (another Denis Villeneuve film). First viewing packs a punch that I wish I could experience again for the first time. However, that feeling of the initial impact has stayed with me years later.
Polytechnique is another one of his films that has stayed with me for years. It is a more linear story with no twist (it is based on the real life massacre at Polytechnique school in 1989) but the residual effects will stay with me for the rest of my life.
Denis Villeneuve knows how to tell a powerful story in a powerful way.
Not for me. My experience of seeing Arrival for the first time can be summed up by Louise's oft repeated statement, "I don't understand." And following Bernard Lonergan's Transcendental methodology (experience, then understanding, then judgment of value, and finally decision), understanding is a vital step in this process. By the third time I saw the movie, I was in tears for much of it. By the way, I was very impressed with the author of this video. Excellent analysis. My complements!
"...is the first 'weapon' drawn in a conflict..." >> "..Offer weapon"... Awesome.
Horacio Iaboni omg....👀👀👀👌
Horacio Iaboni you comment should have way more likes but I bet ppl don't even understand the point your making. took me a minute as well... buy when I did wow. mind blowing
Horacio Iaboni Ha, nice! I didn't even notice that! I was too busy looking for hints about getting cows with war vs. trade ^_^
The moment I heard that line, I knew it was a reference to Louise's book. It killed me that even she didn't see the connection. From the moment the line was read to her on the helicopter, it was so obviously a Chechov's gun line.
i knew it, that's how Louise crack the meaning of weapon
I rewatched Arrival last night and this was the first time I noticed that Louise's line from her dissertation as quoted by Ian here at 4:20 reveals a huge part of the plot: "Language (..) is the first weapon drawn in conflict". At the film's climax, we realize they refer to their language when the aliens say 'weapon'. The key to the film's plot was hidden in plain sight, in the first act of the movie. What an elegant approach to screenwriting.
wow didnt realize this after watching it 12 plus times
@@dannyvista6541 Gotta think non-linearly lol
A brilliant comment.
Thank you.
Woah! You’re so right
“Elegant approach to screenwriting” yes. Love that
This movie floored me in a way that a lot of films fail to do. The cinematography, the acting, the score, the concept, execution, and overall filmmaking just proves to me that this is one of the best sci-fi films ever made. Denis is a genius. 10/10.
King of Wakanda could there be a second since the reason of the aliens arrival was to teach the language of time to the humans so then when the day approach they could help them.
King of Wakanda could we then see the event that causes the alien to seek the humans.
strikethrough stop
King of Wakanda yet you love every marvel film with their forgettable score, same hero origin story and predictable plot. Hypocrisy
And that same man is directing the next Blade Runner...
My main takeaway from the movie which was honestly pretty mind blowing and powerful to me while I was watching the ending unfold: We aren't so different from Louise. Although she can see the details of the tragedies of her future, without the details we still all know what's coming for us. Namely, Death. Pain and loss and heartache. Yet we choose to live our lives anyway. Despite knowing how it all ends, we still glean meaning from the living itself.
I really liked this movie.
k14pc great conclusion, I clearly haven’t thought hard enough about it
The message of this movie just makes me cry, it's so beautiful.
k14pc While watching this video I realized the strong similarities Arrival has to my other favorite film, Eternal Sunshine (I know, cue eyeroll). I love both films for the point you just made. It’s soothing and harrowingly inspiring to see soberingly relatable characters pursue these pleasures even while knowing the painful outcome. To me it calls into question my hard feelings, resentments, and heartache from past experiences and allows me (or commands me) to make peace with them and reflect on them with gratitude. I know of very few movies that can inspire that emotional process in me.
You never get a happy ending because there's always more show. Until there isn't.
k14pc You made me cry
One of the rare movies where strangers want to talk about it when leaving the theather
Funny you should say this, I actually did exactly that just a few hours ago... also this is my first youtube comment :)
awww, you didn't understand the film? such a shame.
I thought the film was horribly self aggrandizing. It thought it was 2001 A Space Odyssey and that it was a deep and intellectual treatment of big ideas. In reality it dealt so superficially and so imprecisely with those ideas and was so self complementary about that same treatment that I just couldn't stomach it. It was "smart" scifi for the masses where the only way the main characters could be construed as smart was by surrounding them with caricatures of stupidity that they could refute.
have we seen the same kino?
The thing is: it's not really about the sci-fi or linguistics, it's more about humanity. I guess, the ideas it dealt superficially were not the main theme. It's a comtemplative kind of movie, I like it, but I get your point.
One of my linguistic professors was the woman who worked on the language in this movie! I've got to say it's a super cool conlang imo.
The thing which impressed me, being bi-lingual was the idea that the language used changes ones way of thinking and preception of reality. So true.
Too bad it had nothing to do with the movie.
@@jeff5881 Too bad you never understood it.
@@jeff5881 I think there is a lot to do with the movie. The movie is all about language and communication, not necessarily the alien language only!
Somebody always knows someone who somethinged.
I can still remember the reaction I had the moment Louise says "who is this child?"
It's like when a magician fools you in a way you didn't see coming.
It's as if some demon were saying: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more..." Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?... Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?" [Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence - The Gay Science]
A magician tricking you in a way that you don't notice the magician, let alone the trick.
SAME
@DrTheKay okay boomer
Yess
I went into this movie not really knowing what to expect but it turned out to be one of the most amazing films I’ve seen in the past 10 years.
Same here. I had no idea what to expect, and it was really important as I realised later
So you've seen Interstellar 10 years ago? How so?
interstellar was terrible hollywoodish - arrival was much more thoughtful and oblique
@@meesalikeu Both are great movies. Just don't hate for the sake of it.
meesalikeu dummy dumb
You know, I won't lie, sometimes I don't know what you're talking about, but you sound sophisticated and its soothing to hear the deciphering of films/people.
Map lol
lol! you are not alone!
No issues here, but I can't follow one argument from him.
It's because he makes a lot of pauses
As I watching this video not really understanding what's it about I thought about how ironic it is considering the first point he makes here ("a true thing, poorly expressed, is a lie).
Did anybody else feel profoundly affected by the movie in a good way? I remember sitting in that movie theater and thinking how our brains construct our visions of the future in the same way it remembers our past. It is in a way, like we are pulling "memories that could be" into being. The movie does using "flashforwards" disguised as flashbacks and turns the whole story timeless. The firsts line she speaks really contains her whole experience.
Wow, that’s an amazing take
That sounds a lot like quantum physics, right? Like you're making things happen by expecting them to happen, simply put. Would you agree?
Good take. Very Enlightening.
That's quantum mysticism, 21st century snake oil. Quantum mechanics has nothing to do or say about human consciousness. Some conmen misinterpreted the double slit experiment and repackaged Tony Robbins as a "new science".
what if our dreams are future thoughts, if it happens in the near future we think of it as deja vu
I loved how the ending of this movie is in fact hidden in plain sight in the very first opening sentences of the movie.
"I though this was the beginning. Memory is a strange thing. We are bound by time. By its order."
That was a beautiful foreshadow of the film
This movie was so outstanding - I don't understand why they didn't get ALL the Academy Awards, even the ones that wouldn't apply, such as best animated short and best use of a chainsaw.
Retro Future best use of a chainsaw lol
Lol
this needs to be an academy award
chainsaw?
Wow, I got emotional watching this because it brought back all the emotions I had in the movie and this coverage was only 7mins. This film can be interpreted so many ways, even from the nirvana perspective, once we realize the suffering of life, then we can find the beauty in the moments.
One of my all times favourites this one.
One study i read proposed that one of the reasons why Japan lost WW2 was their language. We think using words. The Japanese lacked many words with nuances needed to think imaginatively among other things. It was an interesting idea.
@@TheBelrick I had a German teacher who always said language is a reflex of how people think, how the brain works. So learning a new language is unlocking a new way for the brain to work. When I watched this movie for the first time, this teacher's speech came to my mind. Reading these comments now, again.
Truly a very emotional movie. I still remember 3 friends who kept for hours discussing on what happened and how. The music is one of the most beautiful movie music I have came across.
@@vikalpverma9750 Curious ; have any of your friends rewatched the movie since and did your views change? Oh and you are right, the music is excellent and probably half the movie. People under estimate the score's impact on a film IMHO. Take the film UP, i still dont like it mostly because the score depresses and annoys me.
@@TheBelrick not sure about my friends but I have rewatched the movie many times. The score is just amazing, I go through the album quite often. It took me 2 re-watch to fully understand the movie.
Why isn't anyone giving credit to sci-fi author Ted Chiang for this stupendous masterpiece?
Has he written anything else as good as this? I wanna read something else this good.
@@ALucas73 Does he need to? It doesn't take away any relevance, if you produce just one piece to culture that is relevant. Ted Chiang will be in my Hall-of-Fame forever for this. :)
@@dasmorbo3508 I think he was asking for recommendations, not trying to disparage Chiang.
@@Kid_Ying Yeah, I got that. I tried to tell him, that he may try to be content with what he got instead of asking for MOAR. ;) Good work takes time and many writers lose quality if they start mass producing.
@@ALucas73 Ted Chiang is not at all guilty of "mass production." He has nothing at the novel length, but two collections of stories, "Stories of my Life and Others" from 2002 and "Exhalation" from 2019. He published his first story, "Tower of Babylon" in 1990, which earned the Nebula for best novella, and to this date he has published only 17 stories, which is a little more than one every other year or so. The first collection includes "Story of My Life," the tale adapted for "Arrival," which won the Nebula and Theodore Sturgeon awards for best novella. That collection is also available in a movie tie-in version.
"A true thing poorly expressed is a lie" - Yep, that perfectly explains why I suck at conversations
That sentence is nonsense. A "lie" is delberate, poor expression is not. A true thing poorly expressed may not be understood by the listener, may be misconstrued, and may no longer be "true". It is not however, a lie.
@@chrisantoniou4366 Don't even try it. It would seem that this channel is based on making vague, cool sounding points made so that the audience can interpret them in however neat way they prefer.
That's a really bad statement and doesn't make sense.
So don't worry, always stick to the truth, no matter how blunt it is.
Y’all straight up dogged the meaning of that quote, my good why take everything so literally
@@weirdguy4948they can’t get it right,they confuse how language isn’t just made up of logic and ignore the mystical experience that is “understanding “ ,I wish they had read Wittgenstein
I loved the movie. I loved the fact that for once there was a sci-fi move without constant explosions caused by the invariably imperialistic alien race.
Hooga to me it makes sense that if an alien race has the technology to travel, most likely their intent will be indeed "imperialistic".
look what European countries did in colonial times.
Conversely, Imperialism was born because it allowed the wrestling of resources from other cultures, and then transported them back to the imperial capital.
A species with unlimited access to the cosmos would have little reason to invade another inhabited planet when millions of uninhabited ones are teeming with the resources they want.
+Femmy Fabrice I think there might be one small difference however. Europeans are humans and aliens are not.
those are mostly not sci fi, there is huge difference between fiction inspired by science and fiction inspired by fantasy. Solaris is sci fi, transformers action adventure fantasy, Contact is sci fi, Star Wars is space fantasy.
Honestly the first 5 minutes of this movie had me feeling like that one montage in UP. Then the rest of the movie had me like whoa. It's so crazy how a movie can be about aliens and emotions so masterfully intertwined. Like DAY-UM. When the plot twist hit me, I had to pause and just walk around to wrap my head around it. What an amazing movie.
How is it crazy that a story about aliens can be emotionally strong? Science fiction writers have been doing that for centuries now, you just have yet to seek out the gems of books :) I will say that a lot of science fiction, especially hard science fiction, sacrifices character in favor of either plot or the scientific concepts they feature though, but not always.
Purple Face This is a beautiful comment, man. Arrival is a peace of art in my opinion, took my breath away
You would like Ender’s Game. It’s so good!!
Purple Face your reply has me in gen y speak
I think it works because the plot "hangs together" as well as telling a story about people we are invested in emotionally.
Max Richter's _On the Nature of Daylight_ always tears my heart
same my eyes always instinctively water at the first note please
Check out Richter’s album “Infra” or “Songs from Before.” Amazing.
“Abbot is death process.”
What a line, man!
I noticed that too. How it hit my heart
I love how it is Abbot and Costello, the two who popularized the "Who's on first, What's on second?" "Joke"
Abbot knew the future.
what's even more sad is that Costello and Abbott knew that abbott would be losing his/her life in order the humans to help their race in 3000 years. Knowing that they will be going on a mission that will cost one of them their life made it even more perfect.
@Alexander Supertramp ~ the fundamental question of the movie was, if you knew the future was filled with grief would you change it? Abbot clearly didn't want to change it.
So that's it huh, this is some kinda arrival?
nice meme Stop
nice meme You said it yourself bitch, we're the Arrival
nice meme This is one of my personal top 5 memes of all time. You get a like, CONGRADULATIONS. YOU DID IT.
So thats it huh we're some kind of Sicario?
Finally, at last, she has truly becomoe Arrival™
As great as the screenplay (and the source material) for Arrival is, it could've turned out horribly in the hands of a lesser director. Denis just understands what works in a scene and what doesn't. I love how long he drew out the scene where Amy Adams is about to see the aliens for the first time. It perfectly captured what that moment would probably feel like - the anticipation, the sense of wonder, but also the anxiety and the knot you'd get in your stomach. More than any other alien movie, that scene perfectly portrayed the feeling of "holy shit, I'm about to talk to a fucking alien."
TJ Hastie agreed! I almost teared up at this scene simply because it is the kind of tension I've always wanted for a first contact scene. This movie gave us what we wanted. It was, amazing.
Ahh that music gives me chills. I love Arrival so much. I lost my partner a few years ago and this film, featuring aliens and time weirdnesses, speaks to my grief better than pretty much any other film other than The Fountain. Annihilation is pretty good too. But this film is perfection.
One of the strongest feelings I have about my partner (other than raw loss and pain, and being isolated in a world no one else understands) is the knowledge i would do it all again, even knowing how it ends, it is worth this awful pain to have known him and been close to him. And time works very differently once you have been through a loss like that. I have never seen grief explored through this lens, at least not with such extraordinary results 🖤
I am very sorry for your loss. It is so great everyone can find meaning and even solace in a piece of art.
The fountain is another highlight for me in terms of visual psychological time weirdness grief and wonder. ♥️
That's a deep realization knowing the pain at the end but its dwarfed by the moments of love and joy enough to be willing enough to do it exactly the same way. I'm sorry for your loss but glad for the love you had. If I may make another suggestion, cloud atlas 😉💗
comming back to a video about a movie 2 years later realy shows how much it impacted you. Hope thingts are better now ♥
Watching this movie was like the longest meditation of my life. It’s weirdly revealing and soothing...
pretentious nonsense
Jack The Skipper yep it was so boring and misleading a film hailed as intelligent but more insulting to it more than anything else
Jack The Skipper yes, ‘no sense’, for so many.
turtleturbo1025 So you’re saying it’s a stupid film because you couldn’t fallow it? What makes it pretentious? I think you two might be missing the point of the film which isn’t very direct though and I feel you have to give it your own meaning so I can understand that if you don’t get the movie or didn’t enjoy it then you probably don’t give it its own meaning.
William Smith lol dude the movie is basic and misleading ! And why would aliens just help this broad who’s very selfish ! ? It’s easy to follow but I just thought it was a dumb movie. They should’ve just left it as a short story. Aliens used her to save the world and interpret the language. She was selfish for bringing a child into the world who didn’t have long to live. You mean to tell me these aliens couldn’t speak English or know what English letters are? Lol movie was dumb just shot beautifully that’s it
If you have not yet watched this film, *STOP WATCHING NOW. HUGE SPOILERS.* Go watch this masterpiece of a film. Experience it. Then come back and watch this.
Too late. :(
Thanks. This is exactly why I checked the comments before watching. You saved me!
8^D
EmeraldEyeProductions I didn't really like it actually.
You da real MVP
it's too late u.u
The better I understand what a good film is, the more afraid I am to make one.
Arif Uddin dude if you ever need a hand making your movie lemme know
You know, Villeneuve Started in the 90's by making a movie per week in Course Europe-Asie (a race around the world where the participants needed to make a movie per week on their own), then he made 10 movies before Arrival. This is a craft you learn by practice, passion and time. So don't be affraid. Make one. Then an other and an other. Eventually, if you have the tallent for it, you will be making good movies.
Arif Uddin They also say film school is brutal. it's not easy. even bad movies are hard as fuck to make
What ansbjork1 said. Don't be afraid, just start doing stuff. You can only get better, not worse.
Good. That means you're onto something.
Arrival, Interstellar and even the Martian, hold a special place in my heart because they feel like a celebration of science. I love movies that build amazing and effective stories out of real scientific principles and in interstellar and arrivals case, their handling of time and relativity is really out there but still grounded in real scientific theory and handled perfectly. I’d never even considered linguistics as a form of science before I watched this film but within minutes I was intrigued and I wanted to know more
But Interstellar and The Martian don't deserve to be uttered in the same sentence as Arrival. I suppose you liked Passengers too!
@@plica06 Interstellar is certainly on the level of arrival. I can explain why if you want but i'm not in the mood to right an essay rn
"love transcends the dimensions of time and space" yeah really a celebration of science lmao
Three of the best almost-might-be-hard-sci-fi films of all time! (True hard sci-fi is nearly impossible to market in our current society) I highly recommend Robert Zemeckis and Carl Sagan's film Contact. Like the others, it takes a few creative liberties with the science, but also like the others, it is much more faithful to real scientific concepts and the true spirit of scientific exploration than all the fantasy-pretending-to-be-sci-fi films making up most of the box office these days. The climax makes me cry simply because of the sheer beauty of what the main character discovers about the universe. And I cry in a lot of other scenes too.😉
@@plica06 yes interstellar was a WHOLE OTHER masterpiece
I just saw the movie and I hate myself that I didn't watch it on cinema, I am lost of words!! Such an amazing film and performance of Amy Adams, and the Academy is SO shitty that didn't nominate her for an Oscar!
Who cares about Oscar nominations? It's a wank-fest for Hollywood. If Arrival was about a gay black man learning to communicate with aliens about how living in LA is the greatest feeling ever, it'd be a clean sweep at the Oscars.
Triggered?
Lets leave gay black men out of this. Arrival is an exceptional movie, as is Moonlight. Keep it cute sir.
Same thing happend to me, thought it was going to be a regular sci fi film so i skip it from the cinema.
Oscar? Really? for this crappy movie? lol
Spoiler alert? One of the concepts i took away is that since she was living and thinking a non-linear existence, she knew that her child would be born with a rare genetic disorder that would give her a short life but she chose this life anyway. Although tragedy could strike anytime it was a simple decision to make. It gave me a sense of contentment with whatever life has to offer because even with the bad comes all of those unforgettable experiences that you would never trade. Lingering on the bad and you lose sight of all of the moments worth living.
I relieved to read a comment by someone who actually understood this aspect of the movie. Thank you.
Watched it with the mother of my daughter. We cried rivers at the end...
Or you could take the view that she chose that hardship and suffering for her daughter regardless. This is the beauty of interpretation.
For me it was like she had no other option. Future, present and past were the same for her. One moment her child wasn´t born, and the next she was dead.
Also, it seemed to me that the love and pain she felt made easier for the aliens to make her understand. In some of the most special scenes, she remembers her daughter and understand something more. And she understands why one of the aliens chooses to die anyway, even when it could´ve survived. Feelings where their mutual language, and for her, her daughter was her entire live, and the reason she does everything.
Living life like that would be fucking awful. You're binded to one road, there's never any options. The only thing you can do is accept it.
Seeing this video posted made me finally get off my ass and watch this film just so I could watch it unspoiled.
Best decision I've made all year. Thank you.
same me :D
"finally get off my ass and watch this film" XD
me too :D
I did the same as soon as I saw the title of the video. Man...what a movie.
Miki Vega Tendo I'm pretty happy with it actually.
The fact that she still chooses to live that life with Donnelly despite knowing their daughter will die and he will leave her makes me cry everytime. That and 'On the nature of daylight'.
Does she really have a choice though? She can see the future, she can see what she will do, but that doesn't mean she has free will. What she sees has already happened and will inevitably happen.
@@abstract5249 of course, but that still doesn't make the 'decision' easy. How hard it must be for her knowing how this will all play out. Then she accepts her/their fate.
The book goes deeper into those questions. As do a lot of Chiang's short stories, from different angles.
This is why I love this guy. Philosophy and film all in one place.
Same.
Amber Shoffren too bad philosophy is 100% bullshit
Why do people hate philosophy so much? I see a lot of people with similar sentiments to philosophy as yours, but I don't understand why. Could you enlighten me, as to why you personally find it bullshit? I am genuinely curious.
Lyra Heartstrings Just because you find something difficult to understand, or are unaware of how it works, doesn't mean it's bullshit.
A bald, aghast guinea pig because of lack of actual evidence to back up ideas?
I loved this movie, and your analysis of it made me understand so many things I'd missed.
A point you didn't mention is something I saw on another analysis: Louise can see her whole future, included the tragedy in it, but decides to live it anyways.
A somewhat beautiful message of hope.
She lived her entire life knowing what would happen. She made the same decisions knowing that in the end her daughter would die and Hawkeye would leave her...It is so fucking sad and brilliant.
I actually felt this detracted from the ending because it's so egocentric. They ignore the whole ethical question of whether it's right to bring someone into the world knowing they'll suffer terrible pain, family breakdown and ultimately die young. I'm not trying to inflict a judgment here but the film ignores the issue entirely. Worse, they make it clear that this is the reason "Hawkeye" left her and it's a pretty fucking major reason but it's treated as if he were just being puerile.
Agreed. As a comment on other films, Arrival works. But as a story with characters you are supposed to care about, it fails on every level. It's clearly alluded that Louise keeps her daughter's death to herself, which is the most self-centred decision I could ever think of.
The idea in the short story was that she couldn't change her future, which I think makes it more brave. I prefer to look at the movie from that angle, since I like the movie and want a coherent plot in my head whenever I think of it.
That's my interpretation too. For me, the realization that the movie's timeline wasn't linear came before the movie showing that the main character starts to grasp the language (and thus a simultaneous view on her timeline. So I like to think that when she comes to the university to teach she is sad, because she "subconsciously" already lived through her husband divorcing her and her daughter dying. And later in the movie she can fully see it but still decides to live it because she cherishes the good moments.
I don't usually comment but after watching this video there is no doubt in my mind that this is the best channel on youtube. I loved this film and I appreciate your deep analysis and commentary. Keep up the good work and please do more video essays on films.
I also suggest Lessons from the screenplay! Him and this channel are my two favorite when it comes to filmmaking and explanation
agree on both accounts... both of these UA-cam channels are tremendous
Such a wonderful film. The realisation about her child is so profound for me. I had a death of someone I love and I would happily and willingly repeat meeting them again even knowing they would die.
Anyway... Amazing film.
I'm sorry for your loss, and I'm glad you've found reconciliation in the fact afterwards Condolences, my friend.
I second Mike. My condolences. I also wanted to add that this is one of the lovelier interactions I’ve seen on youtube, and I’m happy to have stumbled upon it.
I remember the first time I watched this film.....
Because less than a minute or two into it....................I was crying. And I rarely cry from movies.
It honestly startled me. Yes, it's sad from the jump...but why? I couldn't even explain what it was. I'm not a parent. But somehow starting the movie off RIGHT AWAY with pure existential grief....hit me hard, when I least expected it. I knew from that moment on, after I'd collected myself, that this was going to be a special film.
And I wasn't wrong about that. It's a masterpiece of modern science fiction. When I found out the director was making the Blade Runner sequel....I was thrilled. And he absolutely did not disappoint. That film is also brilliant and worthy of the source movie that inspired it.
I think if I knew how much time I had with someone, perhaps I would treasure each moment more. Maybe we should do that regardless, yes.
My condolences💔
I've noticed a bunch of people saying that audiences did not turn up for this movie. Not so.
It made $203 million worldwide ($101 million in U.S.) on a $47 million budget. That's 20 million viewers in theaters, roughly, and a profitable film.
But many of them are dissapointed because the film didn't meet their expectation.
@@indowithbadenglish5677 Expectations of showing typical absurd explosions throughout the 2 hour movie? Yeah sure it would have disappointed a lot of marvel (just for reference) fanboys and I'm glad it did.
@@robinsingh6408 yeah me too,.. i'm also glad but feel sad in the same time.. i feel sad for them who can't understand movie with such profoundly deep meaning and full of thoughts like this. They sure missed a lot, much more than they realize. And this movie can't offer them simplicity too.
χტ ϟ PαϻThεSϼαϻ420 im a marvel fan didn’t disappoint me
@@briantomassoni8928 Calm down there little fella, I used MCU fans just as a metaphor for all the kids who'd watch an awful movie even after poor adaptation of characters, plot holes and fuck-all logics like a sheep. You prefer romcom, drama, action? You go ahead buddy but you're the one who set false expectations from this movie, the movie never wanted or tried to get you 'hyped', it gets you thinking. You're just in the wrong place. You want a movie with action and which will get you hyped? Just watch any other movie from the 2000s till now, they're all the same. The concept of time interpretation with linguistics is fairly original to a 'super-strong villain appears who beats the hero, by the end of the movie the hero beats him'. That's not my taste anymore but you do you but I won't go as far as watching the film and then bitching about the film based on mere speculations, not worth my time.
The reveal at the end is one of the most chilling and brilliant experience I've ever had in a cinema. Well done.
Elmer Son Elmer Son Elmer Son the reveal at the end was basically another form of the ending of inception with the whole "old man waiting to die alone". Traveling back in time. Remembering past selves.
actually I expected it.
both the opening and ending made me cry, wtf movie?!!
Eric Dickson-Peppler wow, you just said a whole lot of nothing.
I bet you're a riot at parties.
This is the kind of movie where you find yourself still talking about it and discussing its messages for days after you've seen it
That's something that doesn't happen all that often
to yourself;
its shit watch 2001 noob
Necron 99 lol I have, and while I see its brilliance, I did find it a little boring and dated
Crazelord91 and thats why your a noob, worlds full of em, its cool man.
Phew, for a minute there I thought you were saying Arrival was a bad movie.
I found it boring and self-absorbed myself. Have never bothered watching it again and most people in the theater felt the same afterwards. Yes it had deep philosophical undertones, but I thought it was poor sci-fi and anticlimactic
@@PCGGC I also did not care for the movie. I love Denis, I can see that this is a very well-made, well-edited movie with great set design, etc....it just didn't do it for me.
@@PCGGC I felt the same and even tried watching it 4 more times just to make sure I didnt miss anything. Nope - got the same thing each time - disappointment. The whole movie is based around her choice to have a kid even though she knew the kid would die. Big woop.
It was a mediocre and pretentious film that excites only liberal minds. It's fatal flaw is the lack of entertainment value. The characters are flat, boring and rarely get to express themselves within the film. (and of course there is really no action in the film but pick one. characters or action) . All because the shock and dismay of the arrival over shadows EVERYTHING like the director had suicidal thoughts so must everyone within the film. But yes it was an EXCELLENT work of pretentious and boring moody cinema.
@@TheBelrick thats honestly probably the best way Ive heard this movie "reviewed".
I'm so glad you made this. I love Arrival.
MAK Videos It should've won Best Picture. It's far superior to La La Land and Moonlight.
Bob Dole the point you missed is that saving the world can simply mean communication between two people. It doesn't have to be an epic show down.
This movie was boring as hell and felt like it was wrapped up at the end. Did not like.
Roy Spray why did you find it boring and why didn't you like the ending?
Tomislav Kovačić what?
This film is one of the most fascinating and profound movies I have ever seen.
*Just wanted to mention that the plot of Arrival is from a short story by Ted Chiang called "The Story Of Your Life.*
Thank you for that, I had no idea.
No problem
It has actually been highly reworked by the SriptWriter and Director of this film. But, it is based on that short story.
I found it to be pretty close to the source material from what I remember
Renan Almeida you should listen do the q and a podcast about the screenwriter adaptation it's amazing
I absolutely agree. Many may disagree with me, but I truly feel this is one of the greatest films ever created. It impacted me personally, in a way that very few other media has.
How? Explain how?
Same, the short story had the same effect for me. To me it shows something deep about life and love.
@@machiavellianos if he has to explain then...
@@machiavellianos Thats somehow a very emotionally touching movie, thanks to its themes and how the soundtrack works with it.
And while its not some crazy difficult movie as some claim, the unlinear puzzle creates tension that makes it interesting all the way, so usual action is not needed
Everything is complemented by good visuals too. Easily my #1 fav modern movie
Absolutely should be a Top 100 List. I would put it a top 25 list.
This film is without a doubt head and shoulders above many of the other movies out there right now. The cinematography is just spectacular. The plot was very good; it was suspenseful, intelligent, engaging. Everything that this story needed to be it was. This is a film that leaves you looking at not only people, aliens, humanity, but life itself in a completely different way.
I think the statement "Everything that this story needed to be it was" is a great way to describe this movie. It's very simple, but beautifully so.
Mamdeen na, the whole scene where she gets sucked up by the egg was as silly as Mathew McConaughey going into the bookshelf in interstellar.
Less you know about aliens, more interesting you find this film
*+Nerdwriter1* There's one thing that bugs me.
At 3:15 you say that the aliens, being able "to see all the time at once", "use that skill to access future events to influence her present". That phrasing seems to indicate that the aliens are deliberately implanting images from her future into her mind. If that's the case I would disagree.
According to the Sapir Whorf hypothesis the structure of a language would shape your thoughts and behavior. She acquires the capability to see time as nonlinear, seeing images and glimpses of her future, from learning the universal language. She gains this skill gradually the more she learns to write and read the logograms. It's by the end of the movie, when the aliens give her the full scope of this language, that she's then able to interact with her future. With their help, she gains the capability to access future events and influence her present. The aliens enabled her to do so by gifting the language but did not implant these visions. Once she had that skill she made the choice of using it. It might seem like a minor difference of interpretation but in my opinion this relates to free will. "If you could see your whole life laid out in front of you, would you change things?"
We actually don't know for sure who much of the future the aliens are capable of seeing. Is it really "all the time at once"? I'd rather extrapolate from Adams capabilities after she learns the integrity of the language and infer that they can only see and interact with glimpses of their future. I think the aliens took the risk of coming to Earth and give this tool because they knew they would need help or knowledge in the future. Humanity made the choice to accept it.
*Great review! Until now, it's the first one I saw that's an actual analysis of a major theme in the movie. The parallels you've pointed out are compelling. And now that you've talked about the Kuleshov effect I'll be more attentive to these montages in the future. I'm always amazed by films that are able to convey so much with so little words.*
To be precise it was 3000 years in the future that the aliens would require help from humanity.
Spoilers. That is partially what he means, in the film, there is a theory that a language shapes the way we think for example imagine a language where North south east west is the only words to describe directions, left and right are nonexistent. That language would cause you to always know your north and south, as well as you, know your left and right. So in the movie by learning the language of the aliens Amy Adams learns to see through time so the gift the heptapods gave her was language in itself. That is why when the alien states you have weapon she realises she can see all of time and the movie starts showing more and more of the way she pictures time.
No he was saying that Amy Adams was using the skill the aliens basically taught her.
Moon Too much to read and for that reason I'm out.
Put simply, she could remember her future as you only remember your past
the cinematography of Arrival is stunning and perfectly structured. The music along with the image conveys both a sense of peace and chaos at the same time. And a sense of relief and the continuation of the normal life at the end. absolutely amazing film, highly recommend.
"Between thought and expression
Lies a lifetime"
-Lou Reed
I don't have time to read over 3000 comments to see if anyone else realized this... but the movie is NOT ABOUT TIME TRAVEL. It is about MEMORIES. The aliens have memories in the past and future. They knew we would help them in 3000 years because they remember it that way. As the movie progresses Dr Banks is experiencing more and more MEMORIES of the future. She is NOT time travelling. Add to this that she is special because she is able to do this. She makes a conscious effort to remember the future when she remembers what the Chinese leader told her she said. This was a leap for her. To deliberately access those memories and use them, instead of just experiencing them. Knowing this... she can remember her daughter, but can she do something about it? I believe she can, but chooses to still have the child because it is better to have the child and make the most of it. It is said to us that her husband left because of what she told him. As explained in the video he blamed her for not telling him about their daughter's fate sooner... as in before they conceived. Because had she told her husband about the fate of their daughter he would have chosen not to have it. Then giving new memories for the future.
what confused me about this movie is we saw flashbacks/forwards? before she met the aliens. I thought that start of the movie was her mourning her dead child. wiki mentions the aliens need humans help in 3000 yrs , but I did not get that from the movie, so I must have dozed off a few times lol
That's still mental time travel, basically she sees 2d time
celery66 I think that's one of the main meta in the the movie. You are perceiving time as linear, when the idea of Time in the movie is non-linear; the Past and the Future both happens at the present. Note that Present is also (happens in) the past and also the future. So when you saw the "memory" of her daughter dying (at your Present), you are seeing her future (because of the non-linear time perception)
www.quickmeme.com/meme/3qyhz3
This movie made my brain hurt. I love it it is easily one of the best movies I have seen. I'm still baffled that Arrival or Hacksaw did not win best picture. Two different movies but both movies made you think and were beautiful movies in the way they were crafted
I hate emotional movies. I like action. I hate love stories.
Arrival is not something I thought I'd love, but it's probably in my top 5 favourite movies now, at least top 10. It was visually pleasing, emotionally heartbreaking yet heartwarming, stunningly well done, expressed perspective and ideas seemingly perfectly, and was just so well executed and soothing in a way that I just loved it. I love analyzing it, but I also love just watching the movie. It's just an excellent movie.
well alrighty then nigel
It's amazing that I didn't go into the movie expecting a love story, and yet it turned out to be the most romantic movie I've ever seen.
summed it up nicely!
Arrival was way better than Lala land and moonlight. yet the academy ignored it for the big awards like best picture and best actress.
Abhishek Srivastava moonlight is about 2 black gay guys they automatically won
lol moonlight is my second favorite movie after arrival last year but that statement makes me laugh
Nalaxy You're really dismissing how beautiful that movie was. It's not about just a boy being gay, but about masculinity, abuse, identity, and how these things have such strong affects within black communities.
The scene where Black tells Kevin that he hasn't been touched since that night on the beach is heartbreaking. Not just that he hasn't been sexual with anyone else, but that he hasn't let anyone get that close to him emotionally either. The performances were top notch, it deserved all the awards it received.
Abhishek Srivastava I'm not saying it wasn't a deep, emotional movie I'm just saying the people who voted on best movie said "so we got this alien movie but then we got this movie about the struggles of 2 gay black men-" and then everyone yelled MIDNIGHT because it's 2017 so we can't have anyone thing were against gays, or were racist they probably didn't understand most of the movie anyway. Like how in some scenes there is more blue present witch symbols them expressing there true feelings. But it's hard to say witch one is "better" because it's all option anyway.
Sorry for any bad grammar or spelling errors I'm texting on mobile and spell checks a bitch
I know right! If only the Heptapods. Where Black & Gaym. Then Arrival would have been swimming in Oscars. Well that & the fact. That the Heptapods didn't want to be forced fucked by Harvey Weinstein ;)
I watched this movie with my boyfriends family and was in awe. Such a wonderful film. Unfortunately I was the only one who liked it. When we talked about it afterwards I had to debate with 5 people who didn't like it. They thought it was pretentious and didn't achieve what it wanted to. Total bummer.
But it makes me so happy to see video like this about arrival and to read all the comments here from people who feel like me : )
I have to admit, the movie it itself pretty seriously. But it's a great illustration of the phrase, "it's not bragging if you can actually do it".
I haven't met anybody who didn't like it. Not everyone thought it was a masterpiece, but the worst review I've heard was "I really enjoyed that." And I've also heard a fair few along the lines of "I can't believe what I just saw and it changed my life in a profound way."
you cannot marry this man
Haters always looking for something to hate. This movie is amazing, it is completely different to any other movie I have ever watched, very original. It gives another perspective to language and in the end the meaning of life. The character Amy plays decides to have her child even though she knows she is going to die, she chooses love over grief. Awesome movie and awesome video about the movie!
Alejandro Palacio
Well if you didn't have a similar perspective on language, you didn't research language enough.
lol original. have you even watched close encounters of the third kind?
it may try to convey a brilliant message, but the fact is that it's buried beneath tons of clichéd characters, plot flaws and nonsensical acting.
Pedro Martins
What plot flaws?
+Pedro Martins jesus Christ you're a fucking idiot buddy. Get it through your skull that alien movies can be different and be original.Just cuz something shares a subgenre doesn't mean it isn't original. Just cuz you're a hater doesn't mean you need to make things up and embarrass yourself
Jakeb Damwyk insulting me is not going to help you prove your point, only prove your own stupidity.
The approach to language is nothing new. If casting Adams and throwing around a ridiculous plot about teaching language to aliens through a white piece of paper and parrot like imitation is being original then I don't know what to say anymore.
Best movie of 2016.... Easily top 3 as of now. Maybe the best movie i've seen ever. I saw it twice in theater by choice. Loved it.
Neither Doctor Strange nor Civil War come close to Arrival. lol
Connor Zola I saw Rogue One, it was entertaining... but the seriousness of the film... made it more "real" than sci-fi. it just matched better to my taste/mood. the other films are great movies as well. but it lacked the serious tone i needed.
Me too, kellyvtec. The direction and music made me uncomfortable and led me to empathise with Louise so I felt both the tragedy in her story and her acceptance of it. I was genuinely surprised by the plot reveal and cried like a baby. This is one of my favourite movies ever and I've seen a few.
Neil Creamer so much of this movie's tone made it so meaningful. it's hard to explain why, but it connected to me on more just than entertainment. Thought provoking and emotional. if you liked this movie's tone, you might enjoy Secario as well.
Neil Creamer Neil Creamer so much of this movie's tone made it so meaningful. it's hard to explain why, but it connected to me on more just than entertainment. Thought provoking and emotional. if you liked this movie's tone, you might enjoy Secario as well.
When I saw this movie I knew that Bladerunner was in more than capable hands.
not to mention Dune
Has it been confirmed?
Veronica Perez it has
The question now is whether the _studio_ knows that too, or will they meddle with the film like they did with the first one?
Dune too, apparently
Shoulda said this year's ago, but Villaneuve directed the movie, but he didn't write the concept, which is written by Ted Chiang.
It's a short story. Villuneuve is the screenwriter. I would give the same credit to both people since this is hard to adapt let alone visualise and present it on screen
@@adityasanthosh702 Eric Heisserer is the one who wrote the screenplay not Villaneuve
Massive spoilers above.
*DO NOT WATCH* IF YOU INTEND TO SEE IT
Thanks! Was about to watch it then decided to wait . . .
This really saved me, thanks.
Alas, i did not read the comments beforehand... :(
I'd already seen it, but thanks for being a decent person, Victor. I do not understand why people are opposed to spoiler warnings.
nobody is opposed to spoiler warnings though. are they?
friends hated the film, i really loved it. i found it thought provoking
also where is that music from. i thought it was from children of men. but guess not. thank you
its ok thanks, storytellers below mentioned it is "Disconnect".
actually it was in that film too as well as Arrivial. its is - Max Richter - On the Nature of Daylight
kill your friends......I have a shovel
John Cusick they just expected it to be different
I love this movie so much. It’s a movie that treats its audience with respect. This movie is why I have such high hopes for Dune.
I had no idea they were the same director. Yes Dune has a great shot at being good.
@@smileychess Too bad it's not .... It's a little better than this piece of crap 'Arrival' though. Not by much
@@Fiveash-Art tell me you have 70 IQ without telling me.. just because you're aggressively stupid doesn't mean this movie is bad...
Fiveash-art, piece of crap? go watch superhero movies.
@@Fiveash-Art Eh, _I_ love it. As I love Arrival.
not sex, no nudity, no fistfights, gunfights...etc. And no villains too.............just beautiful languages
The villains were the Chinese who forced their propaganda into the film.
No villains? What about "that channel" which made the soldiers get Fox-itis like the Capitol insurgents.
Nothing is perfect
@@saipanbrad The American soldiers with their heads filled with Alex Jones' BS were the villains.
The Chinese answered to the incorrect translation the same way the Americans were about to.
@@cartermariano What do you mean?
I thought the film was cleverly/aestheticly extremely well made. Palindrome!
How is it a Palindrome??
micanikko The movie is about language.The ending is really the start, and she named her daughter Hannah. It was just my impression after seeing the film.
that's my third mindblown thanks
That doesn't really make it a palindrome though.
how is it not lol did you even watch it? thats what the ending was for, to explain that it was all about that concept
I though this movie was a lot smarter and better than Interstellar (btw, this channel does podcasts but on our main channel storytellers we do similar film analysis as Nerdwriter, sorry for pluggin but maybe some of you are interested)
I thought both films have their merits, and even though both seem to use similar tropes, I would say they explore different themes.
The Storytellers Podcast ^ idk about smarter or better but it was co
The Storytellers Podcast no just no even tho it's Fantasy but interstellar told the truth to a point this movie just lied lol
Anne Hathaway kinda ruined Interstellar :(
I thought so too...then I watched the movie and I no longer think that....
Do not watch, I repeat DO NOT WATCH this video if you haven't seen the film first. It has too many spoilers.
lol thanks, no warning and watched it anyway...
Too late for that. It sucks that the author did not put a disclaimer up front.
I had to sit in the cinema for 10 minutes after the film finished as I was so blown away that I couldn’t drive safely. The music still moves me to tears. What a film.
Although, I share your feeling of being profoundly affected, I could not have been sitting around for that long 😅 The cleaning, disinfection staff immediately moves in so that the hall can be ready for the next screening.
no u didn't stfu
The amount of people in the Internet saying this film is a snoozefest is way too high!
There are a lot of idiots around in the internet.
Miss X not enough explosions, people see aliens and they instantly think of violence and that is honestly such a worrying thought about our society
Probably the same people who loved Suicide Squad or some meanless shit like that.
A lot of my own favorite movies are snoozefests. Doesn't mean it's bad.
not surprised. Many people expecting this movie as action-war alien movie.
one of my favorite movies, I got chills watching it.
chills? I cried like a baby...
Kristin Nguyen I wanted to like it more, but I felt the cutaways to her future memories hurt the film immensely. They needed that wasted time to better explore the language decoding, as well as more interaction with the other countries. They preached being more connected and open with the rest of the world but never showed us how any of the other countries were handling the situation. Right when they could have we'd get a 1:30 Slo mo cut to her with a baby instead of her interacting with and helping the other countries. I left the theater disappointed.
That's the point of the language... It helps us understand time as it is. Not a thing of past and future but a circle imagined in the circle like written language of the aliens. It has no beginning and no end and so do memories. They start as an idea and may end as past. Wich is really the point of the cuts to her personal life. Memories are something strong and powerfull (phone number) but in the essence the most personal thing we still have in this world.
Especially the ending blew my mind
It was wonderful wasn't it?
Evan, I wanted to thank you. About one year ago I decided to take inspiration from you and started creating video essays every week, since then I've had a lot of success, a lot of fun, and have learned even more. So, thank you!
You deserve a lot more subscribers
That was the single most effective and subtle way for you to get people to check out your channel. Got me curious!
By the way, please remember to appreciate the source material of the movie, Ted Chiang's short story "Story of Your Life". Such a wonderful work, complicated and charming. The movie does a great job for sure, but the original text is something else.
I know it received mixed reviews on amazon and Metacritic, yet it was the first movie in a long time that gave me goosebumps at the climax of the story.
Metacritic can be a good gauge for a lot of things. However, I've noticed the smarter the media is that is being rated, the more inaccurate the ratings can be (from both users and critics).
To be fair, I almost never listen to audience reviews anymore. At any site, be it Amazon, Metacritic, IMDb, etc. Because, well... they're usually a cesspool of both extreme negativity and of people who just don't appreciate the art of film. Every single time a great film- especially a great genre film- comes out, all you'll find from casual audiences is nothing but malice and venom and hatred because they either don't understand or don't appreciate the artistry or challenge.
It's sort-of ironic, because there's been an active push-back against critics the past few years... and yet, films like this show why critics are a very good thing and are necessary to balance out against audiences. Because sometimes, casual audiences just don't have the capacity to appreciate great things. It sucks to admit it, and I'm sure people would argue against that all day long, but it's true. (And very much to opposite is true- sometimes critics don't have the capacity to understand cheesy, fun movies.)
Hey, you wrote what I was thinking! Yes, that's all a very good way to put it and exactly agree.
+MaximumMadnessStixon, very true. Arrival was a very unique experience for me, and is probably my favourite movie of that year, but my family found the movie boring. The Babadook and Mother! was also pretty interesting to me too, yet the popular consensus is that those movies suck.
Mother! is such a strange movie that'd it's a movie that doesn't make any sense by conventional ways and leaves you completely at your interpretation, yet I can never say it's a bad movie and I really liked it.
I couldn't get behind Blade Runner 2049 though. That movie was just a slogfest and was anything but a good movie to me, so I couldn't get myself to agree with critics on this.
Metacritic: 8.1/10 from both critics and user reviews, which Metacritic categrorizes as "Universal Acclaim" not "mixed reviews" WTF are you talking about?
Honestly one of the best movies I've ever seen, it's absolutely beautiful, now one of my favorites
Jennifer Lee Do u have any idea how beautiful you are?
This is well-made video and I'm glad you found so much in Arrival, but unusually I have to disagree with your analysis. You mention it as being 'a response to bad movies' but to me, Arrival is merely Villenueve failing to imitate the masters of editing through time (Malick and Tarkovsky come to mind). His discussion of time is merely limited to using that to structure his plot (i.e. to resolve the conflict at the end, for the opening sequence) and I don't think he manages to successfully distinguish the differing perceptions between linear and non-linear time. Films like Malick's The Tree of Life and Tarkovsky's Mirror show us how time itself shapes our memories and who we are without resorting to a) literal time travel and b) presenting linear time as the basis for the story. By telling the story in order but throwing the occasional scene out of order, he makes the film exploitative (a certain dead child subplot which opens the film is literally just lazy writing to force the audience to care for a character and is never thorougly explored ethically) and cruically, fails to make non-linear time truly appear non-linear. I'm also not convinced that Villenueve's use of the Kuleshov effect is any better / more innovative than any other film as it seems editing a film out of order naturally creates such an effect (and people like Nolan, Lynch, Roeg, Resnais have done it equally well, if not better). On the language front, it's a clearly liberal use of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and I'm not convinced that the linguistics really holds up beyond the most basic level that Amy Adams mentions (although I'm not a linguist, so I could be wrong). Also, I just found Arrival to be quite cheesy and lazily written in parts and certainly not a masterpiece. It felt like a simplistic alien contact story with Villenueve throwing in some subpar Malickesque sequences now and again to try and seem artsy. The truth is that to me, it's way worse than the arthouse movies it keeps on being compared to and mediocre as a sci-fi flick.
That's an interesting perspective. I found a lot of meaning in Arrival, most definitely partly due to the fact that I resonate strongly with Villeneuve's way of storytelling and because Amy Adams really floored me. But then again I haven't seen many other films on the subject(s), so this is a great reference for me to catch up on my movies!
I didn't think the death of her child in the beginning of the film served as a way of creating sympathy for Amy's character rather than literally rushing us through that plotline and thus making it clear that this movie wasn't going to be about the death of this particular child on a smaller scale - exaggerated by the extreme close up shots during that first scene - but the concept of time (not timetravel - which imo was never a subject in Arrival) and pre-determination on a much greater scale.
It's true that the movie doesn't weigh in on the ethics or morality of Louises decision, which I liked because these are shifting concepts and highly subjective. I personally appreciate when a movie makes room for individual exploration and self-discorvery rather then relieving the audience from an ambivalent thought process by indicating a certain direction.
Excellently put response! My own reaction to the beginning was "Really? They're saddling the lead with a dead child right off?". As to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, I'd be willing to give that a plot-device pass as long as the rest of the movie around it held up, but I never felt it did.
soundspy Thanks for the response. I understand the idea of rushing through the opening scene but the way it's presented seems intended to be emotional which is emotional manipulation and imo poorly done. The use of handheld close-ups shot beautifully reminded me a lot of modern-day Malick who, as I said, handles these topics better. I also understand that Arrival is not about time travel but the character's consciously are aware (at least, by the film's end) of when they looking at / thinking about the past, present or future. This awareness of time's position doesn't match truly non-linear thought processes and other films on the matter don't attempt to make explicit when each scene is set by the film's end. By doing so, Arrival tries to tell a story where all the memories fit together rather than presenting memory as it really is (disconnected fragments with no structure, often non-chronological and ordered by emotional similarity). On the ethical side, I wasn't requiring anything on it but the question of raising a child you know will die young is hinted at enough that they should have either gone further or cut those lines out. In all honesty though, if one removes the dying child subplot, none of the themes on time perception and communication seem to change, so why include it? There's certainly a lot to like about Arrival and Amy Adams is superb in it and if you find Villenueve's take interesting then I'm glad but it just didn't work for me.
The dead child subplot brings the theme of free will, which I think is the main point of this film.
bwana666 Interesting idea, I hadn't considered that. However, the film is seriously muddled if that is the case. As Louise can see the future, this (although incoherently presented) implies predestination and given that language supposedly determines your worldview, Louise seems to have no free will as her new (and possibly old) language and time perception prevent that. If the film is pro-free will, that is muddled. If the film is saying Louise's choice to have a child is free will that is unproven given the aforementioned predestination. If the film is neutral and we are meant to think about it, what exactly is the film bringing to this discussion? Free will exists even if we know the future. That seems illogical, unproven and too subjective for a film attempting to ground itself in science. If it's bringing forward the idea that free will exists in spite of language, that seems shallow and not satisfactory as an overarching theme if it is meant to be so. That's not to say these aren't there and you are welcome to interpret Arrival however you wish but I am not personally convinced that free will plays such a huge part in the film. Human subjectively regarding memory and time, perhaps, but in that case, I'd rather watch Tarkovsky's Mirror.
It's so sad to know that there are people out there who won't understand the symbolism and intricacies of this masterpiece because they've decided that it is "boring."
😭it was so beautiful
Exactly... I'm glad the majority of people that came to this video are on the same page as I am.
I ran to this video
This film taught me something.
That aliens look like weird hands.
to skate fast eat ass
NonZeroSumGame yeah, don't elaborate or anything. it's fine
That some people won't understand the meaning of this movie so they'll just ask someone on youtube
Nobody noticed his name?
What's not mentioned in this video is that "Arrival" is based off the short story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. The film adaptation presents the questions and meaning behind the short story in brilliant fashion. If you loved this film, you MUST read "Stories of Your Life and Others" by Ted Chiang.
Yes, and I was blown away by this adaption. The book and the movie are quite different, but similar and same is the basic concepts, two brilliant works of art that both stands together and on their own. I'd highly recommend reading / seeing both.
Matthew, I ended up read Ted's short story soon after I watched the movie.
Alexander, Agree that the book and the movie are quite different.
Last year I collected ~180 minutes of video including three video clips of Ted speaking. It may be fun to watch. kempton.wordpress.com/2016/12/04/love-amy-adams-arrival/
i just think it's great that this was an alien movie that wasn't about war and saving the world or creepy glassy eyed aliens. because i've always hated the idea that 'if aliens exist, they must be like us'. Where we assume that we are the pinnacle of evolution and that aliens must have faces, must talk in a language that we can translate, must have legs and bones and blood. That they must want war, or to take over humanity. But who's to say those things aren't the REASON humanity hasn't gotten to interstellar travel? If conflict and war is the reason we are trapped in an endless cycle of regression and progression. Let's be real. If someone found a way to space travel, who would trust humanity with it? We've already shown, countless times, that when we find other life, we believe them to be 'less than human', and therefore, are capable of endless cruelty towards them. So why do aliens have to be just as cruel as us, if they are so superior?
So beautiful. Thank you for writing this
There is a simple reason aliens would want war: if they evolved from bacteria to sentient being to a civilization, they must have experienced both conflict and cooperation. It a objectively obligatory since it mathematical. Humanity has gotten further than everything on this earth and is constantly advancing toward nterstellar travel, so conflict might be slowing humanity's progress but not trapping it into a cycle of destruction. Also "superiority" doesn't mean "good", whatever those 2 words mean they are not synonymes.
@@grawa4278 if they evolved and learnt from their own history enough that they got to another planet, surely they would know that war and cruelty is futile? im not arguing that they wouldn't have experienced history like we do, but if they are advanced, their scholars, philosophers and humanitarians must also advance with them. and i would argue, superior must mean good, because no smart person chooses violence and cruelty. if they are knowledgeable, if they have learnt and grown on their own planet, then they must have some measure of wisdom. if we say a territorial animals who murder its neighbors for more prey is natural but violent, who's to say the aliens wouldn't treat war the same way? a natural thing for humans, but ultimately, a savage and immature thing to do.
@@daniellelee7105 That might not be false, but that is also very simplistic. I agree that war is savage and all but that doesn't mean that someone with more capabilities will not do it. Also if they have philosophers they might be less listened to than expansionist or idk. There is very little reason why an alien species would want to declare war to us but thinking that someone moree advanced is always benevolent is probably not true.
@@grawa4278 yeah, but thinking that they will always have malicious intentions is also not always true. which was my point. the point is that we literally don't know how aliens are or could be. i was literally just saying that this version of aliens is way more interesting because it actually acknowledges that there could be things beyond our understanding. and it addresses the fact that our humane instinct to bomb the shit out of every possible threat is, in fact, very human and also very stupid.
I'd like to add something to the language part.
Denis Villeneuve is a Québécois which is a french-speaking people that live in Canada. The Québécois are often confronted on deep identity debats by the fact that they are not independant and part of an english speaking country with a distinct culture than the one of the Québécois. Canadians and Québécois dont communicate together that much and aleniate each other which is why they are often referred as the two solitudes.
I think this social situation in his home country has influenced this movie.
Two Solitudes, isn't that a song by Level 42.
J'avoue que j'avais pas vu ça comme ça, mais que ça donne beaucoup de sens au travail de Villeneuve! Incroyable, merci pour cette réflexion!
I think his point is far Higher than that.
I grew up in Montréal in the 60's and 70s, then moved to Toronto. I know very personally what you are talking about.
As a high school senior, I visited Quebec and Montreal as part of the French Club. Quebec was almost rabidly French oriented to the point I couldn't find anything in English. While Montreal was a lot more welcoming to me as an English speaker in a French enviroment. The guys in the club joked at how often we used "Parlez-vous anglais?" but while Quebec would ignore us or treat us as inferior because we asked if anyone spoke English, Montreal never did.
I fucking love this movie. Definitely makes you think, that's for sure.
I love reading everyone's opinion on it and seeing all the different perspectives on the movie.
shame the science isn't great lol
Read the short story that inspired it.
I think this movie was great, but the reason many don't seem to enjoy is if you didn't get into the personal story of the main character, you simply don't get as surprised by the ending and end up finding the movie dull.
Jicko1560 SO TRUE. Exactly why my parents did not get it, and ended up calling it a nonsensical movie.
I have to admit that I first was annoyed by the flashbacks and actually complained to my girlfriend and said "now they need to squeez those flashbacks in of some dead child to give this shallow character some depth". Amazing movie.
Nerdwrite is obviously spot on with the association of emotions towards the scenes in the beginning.
My problem with the film is that I found the plot and climax to be too nonsensical. The cinematography, music and Amy Adams performance was breathtaking and intriguing enough, though I found it rather slow and without substance. While others I know found the 'twist' to be original and refreshing, I was just left confused and unsatisfied. I overall didn't enjoy the film, however still appreciate the concept and artwork from Denis Villeneuve and am of course still excited to see his work in the upcoming Blade Runner 2049
what can be surprising in generic amerikan bad movie №2345763465
its not hard to find the movie dull if the movie begins with a kid dying of cancer. sure the illness is tragic, but our relations to that emotion are prematurely blank and some of us unfamilar with the experience.
Watched first 30 seconds of this video, paused it and watched the movie. HOLY FUCKING SHIT
It's fucking awesome heh
Hola hoops holy fucking shit. right !
did you watch it online or at a cinema? i dont mind watching online...i just dont do it anymore and i dont know whats safe nowadays.
online. everything is safe nowadays.
Itdosnt Matter
None is working in that website
This film was like catharsis for my soul. Stunning visuals, a film score like no other and a beautiful story from the mind of a true writer.
"I don't like this movie"
And the first reply is always something insulting their intelligence.
This was my favorite movie of 2016, but god damn guys... Enlighten them on your opinion rather than straight up calling people dumb.
Why should we? They just post troll comments like, "Arrival sucked," and, "bad movie," as if they were scolding a dog, "Bad dog!" They give no reason for their opinion. They aren't interested in being enlightened. If they were, they would engage in a meaningful conversation. At least Timothy Huang and Saki Mcbill posted longer comments with actual substance as to what they didn't like about the movie. Unfortunately, one person said he "couldn't read all that" about Timothy's post and said he/she just skimmed it. Those people are presenting arguments for why they held the opinions they held. I respect that and think it's worth your time to discuss the film with them. People posting comments that say in their entirety, "It was slow and boring," or, "It's the biggest crap I ever seen," are not interested in thoughtful conversations.
Time travel as a plot device is fundamentally flawed with the rare exception that the grandfather paradox is handled appropriately. No causality, no story.
@@brainmind4070 It doesn't have anything to do with time travel. She simply has all the information. *That* doesn't influence anything, because she made all her decisions with that in mind. They even dumbed it all the way down to the basement with the example - hannah's life. It's not her making decision's in spite of knowing what they'll lead to; it's that that's her decision and she knows the effects to the full extent. This is not without *application*, like the husband leaving her or the main plot, but the entire thing exists simultaneously, with no way to change it. If she did change it, she knows all the effects. She only got that information because she understands the whole thing, knows the whole thing, made decisions based on the whole thing, which would violate causality to an outside observer. But only because the outside observer can't see the mechanics of what's happening as possible.
Well, this is the case because this movie has elements like non-linear storytelling and almost no action, and most of the complaints are about these elements. Calling people dumb might not be appropriate, but asking people to have patience to sit through whole plot, or judging the movie for what it is should be OK. Since it is internet, people can skip formalities.
appreciating this movie has nothing to do with intelligence or intellectual understanding, it has to do with emotional understanding. just read all the negative comments here-they mostly mention technical/intellectual problems such as plot holes, paradoxes, and writing (and, of course, they're rife with plenty of ad hominem). an intellectual bred in our age of information worship and cheap emotional gimmicks of Hollywood would of course hate this movie, because the grand reveal-and the entire overarching theme-appeals to the emotions first, not the intellect. the arguments surrounding this film could be described simply as scholars vs. artists.
she has not lost her child. She WILL lose her child. When the aliens arrive the event is still in the future. she is just lonely.
David Smith Why did she have to be a strong awesome person then?
David Smith women can only be portrayed as strong and awesome in movies or you get people like David throwing fits all over the place
perfectly said. there seems to be a common theme in all of the negative reviews in the comments against Arrival
David Smith She was the first one to remove her hazmat suit when confronting the aliens while all the guys were freaking out?
Stop with all the "On the nature of Daylight" in the background! It makes me wanna cry hahaha
Was going through the comments section looking for the name of this song. Thanks!
After watching Arrival, I remember this novel I read two years ago, titled Slaughter House Five (or the Chldren’s Crusade) by Kurt Vonnegut. In the book, “Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time” and in one of his time travels, he met an alien specie called Tralfalmadores who do not see time as linear like we do. For these species, the past, future and present happens all at once, like a panoramic view. Billy Pilgrim wondered why they won’t help humanity since they know what would happen in the future, but they countered him and said “what difference would it make?”
When Renner asked Adams “do you dream about their language?” I sort of thought that she became unstuck in time too, and did not think that she’s able to “see” the future. I think she “experiences” the future and then wakes up in the moment where she is, like Billy Pilgrim.
Have you watched the movie of Slaughterhouse 5?
Chris Antoniou there is??? I haven't!!!
@@maureendullas2603 Yes, released a while ago on DVD and more recently on Blu Ray. Great movie and made quite an impact on me when I saw it as a youngster at the movies. www.imdb.com/title/tt0069280/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
People with a attention span of a jellyfish and people who don't wanna use their brain in the movies called this movie crap.
im exactly the opposite but this movie was crap.
That you would say that towards anyone with a different opinion says enough, lol.
Nah. This movie was really easy to follow. I didn't need to use my brain at all. Did you think Inception was complex also?
i.e. People who voted for Trump
Why do you feel that this movie was crap?
This video is great. Arrival is my favorite movie of 2016, and you did a great job explaining it more, and talking about other aspects of the film. I loved the twist in the movie.
Am I the only person who didn't like the twist?
Overwatch Clips Tell me, do you care about people? Love? Unition?
Overwatch Clips I can see where you are coming from and I respect your opinion. Personally I loved the twist.
+Teemo ily Everyone does. There are just people who forgot that...
A totally random but very lovely movie would still not be enjoyable. You need to have some form of logic in your movie otherwise it's just a mess.
Don't get me wrong I liked the rest of the movie but don't get superpowers from learning a new language just because it rewires your brain...
If they just said that the aliens gave her the power. Not through their language but in a traditional way than I'd be ok with it...
(I hated the end of interstellar too)
Me too... first time I felt totally baited by a "flashback."
Apparently, I'm one of the few who actually liked Arrival when I first saw it. Go figure.
Actully they are much more
You are not
I absolutely loved it the first time I saw it.
What? Where did you get the assumption that no one did?
I think "like" isn't the right word. I was deeply moved, puzzled and intrigued by a movie that made me actually use my brain for a change. This is a deeply emotional and haunting film that I will never forget even if I never watch it again.
Fuck are you talking about?
This was one of the first movies that actually brought tears to my eyes from the sheer weight of its message, and the quality of its storytelling. My favorite movie, hands down.
i discovered today that the sad music was also in shutter island ! it is "on the nature of daylight" by max richter for those who were wondering
I can also recommend "November" by the same composer, imho it's even a bit better.
Yep, masterpiece music for two masterpiece movies.
But I didn't like that the song was kinda prolonged in the end of Arrival - it was played way too long (for the entire ending sequence, I think) for such a powerful piece of music. That is probably the only nitpick I have for Arrival, though. Great, great film.
drakem394 check out Waltz with bashir if you like Max Richter!
and he nearly didn't let them use it as it's been used for two other films before. So glad he changed his mind, that score in the first sequence sets the tone for the whole film
listen to the nature of dying by goreshit, its a beautiful remix of on the nature of daylight
So I guess it's edgy now to hate on the this film lol
thatguywhostacks THIS MOVIE FEELS DIFFERENT HUUUUUNNRRRGH
Alex So saying edgy now a days means you should be ashamed of yourself, huh.
No, they're just idiots that don't understand the movie.
What didn't you like about it? I really loved it so I'm curious what issues you found
SirAlpaca ThyGolden So "edgy" is the new "cringy", the "nigga" of buzzwords...
Arrival is one movie that left me simultaneously disappointed and satisfied. I love how it defies all the tropes of the classic alien movie, but I wanted it to dive more in depth into the actual event of the aliens arriving unto earth, and more insight into how the other countries deal with them, other than the screens at the site. I know the whole point of the movie was for it it to be an intimate relationship with the main character, but I feel like seeing more of how everyone else reacted would have made the impact of her final act that much greater.
Mohammed Hamza Well that wasn't what was intended in the original story. The main focus was SUPPOSED to be with Amy Adams seeing the future, but they made the aliens more prominent in the film, so they didn't have too much to work with
what you are describing is a different movie
Mohammed Hamza Neither of those were the point of the movie...
That is exactly why I hate generic hollywood movies, which spoils a book/script by forcing it to change into something that hand-holds the audience like a toddler and explains everything to them.
Arrival does it right to leave the unimportant things about the plot out. If you want some dumb but satisfying , watch pacific rim.
Agreed. And I'm a MASSIVE Villeneuve fan: he's my favourite working director right now. I think the problem lay in the marketing: the trailers made it seem like it would have far more action than it did. Not that I wanted a massive shit ton of action, mind you - I'd have settled for the same approach Villeneuve took to PRISONERS, ENEMY and SICARIO when it came to action, but the film was lacking on it because of the expectations the trailer created. I also found it slightly too cerebral for like 90% of the time, and it was only at the very end that it flooded you with emotion. I felt that those emotional beats should've been more interspersed throughout the overall narrative, but I really need to see it again to make a final judgment.
I couldn't breath by the end ... There are a lot of things to learn from this film, but the way this actress loved her daughter before she was born it is unthinkable, at the point that, she could change her present in order to have an healthy child, but the connection that she had with her in her premonitions, was so strong and meaningfull, that she decides to not change the future. I'm glad we don't know the future of our lifes It feels like we're protected.
In my opinion the fundamental flaw of the movie is ignorance of the free will. It's a leap of logic to accept that she can see all of her life at once and decide not to change it, and then if you choose to correct the future or just make different decisions (with every new decision there would come a new lifetime of future "memories") , that would be so intense that it would make anyone lose their mind.
That was what I was going to say, I mean, if you knew your daughter is going to die, why not marry someone else?
yeah The book the movie is based on explores the idea of having minor omniscience like louise does and that effect on free will? She ends up feeling the push to do certain things that will lead to the future she sees. In a sense she is robbed of free will once she sees a future event, in that she can't act in a way that would violate that knowledge by making that event not come to pass.
@Qui Shuang do you not DO emotions or something? You sound like a child or a socio. People love who they love, there aint no switch dude. It's like this.. Do I decide to omit my daughter from existence for the selfish reason of not being sad. Or do I love my daughter and get to know her and be sad?
And where in the movie did anyone say she doesn't? After all, saving the world part had no impact on her having her child. So she can save the world and marry someone else and have a perfectly healthy child.
Woah jumping to conclusions too quick are we? There are plenty of fish in the sea and I know for a fact people can fall in love twice with different people. She is stupid for not looking for another possible future. Heck, even her future husband hates her after he learned the truth (just look at the flash backs). She won't omit her daughter out of existence, after all, her daughter never existed up till that point. All she needed to do is pick a different future.
Not enough people have seen this film.
Not only is Arrival great science fiction, explaining source-less heartache and melancholia, as well as deja-vu as glimpses into impactful memories we haven't experienced yet, but it's a fantastic social criticism as well. Learn a new language and experience the world in a new way.
Thanks for this breakdown.
Such a great soundtrack too, also loved that song in Disconnect. (btw we do similar analysis as the Nerdwriter, can always use feedback)
Which song?
darude sandstorm
On The Nature Of Daylight
Shutter Island was where I heard it first, it's a masterpiece really.
Well.. the song that plays during the first and last scene is Max Richter's On the Nature of Daylight, which he wrote in 2004, and not as part of any film's score. The rest of the score is by Jóhann Jóhannsson, and imho it's pretty terrible. It's more noise than music, and though it is effective during the reveal of the aliens - it kind of sounds as unnatural as the Lovecraftian design looks - it misses everything else... I could go on and on about Richter's influence on Jóhannsson btw but that's really irrelevant
I wish I can experience this movie again from start the finish without knowing. Truly different. Loved the execution. Amy adams was on point
Arrival was the first movie which made me cry in so many years of watching movies. The song nature of life has meaning now and when I hear the song I tear up just like rn watching this video. thanks :)
'An idea, however profound it seems to you does not really exists until you can write it down'
I disagree, that is just not true. The fact that you don't have the ability or the "language" to convey that idea into words does not mean the idea is not true. The fact that words are just made up from those ideas in the first place already proves that the quote contradicts itself.
For example, in science, you can find that many of the 18th and 19th century physicists had plenty of ideas that they simply couldn't put it into math, but they sure were true and proven later on by 20th century scientists.
But they could obiously put it in word, and language to some extent can exist in image and memory, at least for the individual subject to think.A word is compose of a signifier and a signified. Ultimatly the signified can preexist but the understanding of the signified as one category, as something that exist, is more often than not rather arbitrary and artificial. And science, only referring and inspired by the personnal experience, without any form of language, would not exist. Keep in mind that language is not nescessaraly spoken.
galesx95 you're interpreting what he said as something else. If someone 200 years ago had an idea that they never shared with anyone, or had written down. That idea does not exist. You need some kind of written language to bring that idea to everyone else, to the world.
Brick ByBrick then how do u explain improvisational music and dance? Ideas don't need language language needs ideas, this is why I feel the premise of the film is really not profound at all. There's nothing cosmic or grand about language it's actually quite mundane and primitive, it limits human expression rather than expand it, it tries to objectify the abstract, thus the term "there are no words..." If all aliens had 2 offer me was a new language I'd be pissed, ppl do that on earth! ppl like George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry 😂
Exept the film did not created the theories on language. And dance or music can easily be explain as forms of language. You need to keep in mind that language can take visual (written) and oral (spoken). And the meaning of a dance or a song is created in the social world. They are not random noise or involuntary movment but are selected to fit a easthetic or to express certain feeling (and not ideas) that are created and codified with the composer (relating to his environment and often culture) but also the listener (relating to his).
I agree. That also completely disregards very rich and accurate (i.e. vetted and triple-checked) oral histories that go back much farther than written history. For example some aboriginal Australian oral histories go back literally 20,000 years and accurately detail real events that we've verified with anthropological/geological evidence. (I love Arrival and I liked this video, I just had a problem with that one statement for obvious reasons.)
"There is no thought without expression"
This statement is ridiculous. What do people usually do when they are in deep thought? Nothing. They sit there... expressionless. I can't speak for others, but the vast majority of my thoughts are not expressed. In fact, I dare say that a person who is compelled to express every single thought would be unbearable company.
"That an idea, however profound it feels to you, does not really exist until you can write it down or in some cases put it on film"
Thoughts are, by definition, non-physical. They cannot exist physically. Words and works of art, like movies, are expressions, physical expressions, not the actual thoughts they are expressing.
I think the above is an illustration of what Stephen Fry meant by "A true thing badly expressed becomes a lie"
I had the same issue with this phrase.
I write, therefor I am? Yeah, that makes no sense at all.
hang on now, if the thought isn't expressed it dies with the thinker. To me it is sort of a "tree falls in the forest" sort of idea. So if the thinker never expresses the thought, never allows the thought to influence an action of expression, it is as if the thought never existed.
But when you are thinking you talk to yourself using a language. Expression doesn't mean that has to be write down in paper or said out loud. It makes a lot of sense to me.
But if you only "express" it to one or two people, it dies pretty quickly with them. And if they die before you do, it's as if you never expressed it in the first place, and we're right back where we started.
Another aspect of the film seems to portray language as a Mandelbrot set. From Louise's own inner monologue trying to understand her own emotions, through the difficulty of explaining her motivations to her own group, all the way up to trying to find common context with aliens from other dimensions, it was the same conflict shown at different levels of magnification.