An Intimate Journey Through Time and Space

Arrival, a science fiction film centered on alien contact, is a distinctly more idealistic, intimate, experiential work than others in its genre. Denis Villeneuve, director of Sicario and Prisoners, opens the film with an arrival: the birth of a baby girl to our protagonist Louise, played by Amy Adams. The opening sequence traces the brief life and eventual death of Louise’s daughter and poignantly prepares the audience to be emotionally united with Louise throughout the film. This compilation of moments also sets us up to believe that these events took place before the arrival of the heptapods, but in actuality, the film moves nonlinearly through time, as Louise, unknowingly at first, is able to comprehend all the events of her life nonlinearly.

A world-class linguist, Louise begins working for the U.S. military to decipher and translate the language of the foreign species that has planted its elliptical transport vessels in twelve locations around the world. She works at the Montana site alongside theoretical physicist Ian, played by Jeremy Renner.

These colossal ships of unknown material, an homage to the fabled monolith of 2001: A Space Odyssey, mysteriously hover just above the ground in their various locations. Inside the Montana ship, the team meets two heptapods, our alien ambassadors, whom Louise and Ian affectionately nickname “Abbott” and “Costello”. Louise quickly learns that the most effective way to attempt communication with the heptapods is through written language. She begins learning their unique symbols for different concepts and observes that their language system uses what’s called nonlinear orthography.

Orthography refers to the written representation of language, and that of the heptapods’ language is described as nonlinear, because their orthographic representations are produced in circular puffs of smoke that virtually have neither beginning nor end. Information from both the beginning and end of an utterance exist at the same time, so the meaning of the utterance can be derived all at once, rather than progressively, as is typical of human languages. This serves as the underlying cause or rationale for the heptapods’, and ultimately Louise’s, ability to comprehend all time points in life—past, present, and future—simultaneously.

The cognitive concept behind Arrival is derived from the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis known as “linguistic relativity”, a highly criticized theory in psycholinguistics describing, in its strongest interpretation, that language determines thought. In other words, the structure of the language you speak limits and determines your cognitive abilities and therefore defines the ways in which you are capable of creating thought. Whorf asserted that language shapes an individual’s basic worldly perceptions, thus rendering one-to-one translations between markedly differing cultures impossible. In one line of research, he made a claim that the Inuit language has numerous words for snow and therefore the Inuit’s perception of snow is fundamentally different from all other cultures. In actuality, the number of words for snow in the Inuit language has been largely exaggerated, and many twenty-first century linguists rebuff Whorf’s theory, emphasizing that language is merely a method by which humans communicate concepts existing prior to and independently of their linguistic encoding.

Nonetheless, it is actually Whorf’s most controversial research that is brought to life by Arrival. He claimed that people of the Hopi tribe have a fundamentally different concept of time, as compared to all other cultures, an assertion formed from erroneous observations that they do not describe concepts through distinct, sequential time points. He argued that, because the Hopi do not appear to have words delineating time, they must live in a world free of the concept of time. In his eyes, their perception of reality must be fundamentally different from all others’. Here arises the idea that serves as the foundation for Louise’s experience in Arrival.

Apart from the controversial theory on which its fictitious plot points were based, the film evidently makes a statement about how strong an influence language has on our perceptions and understandings of others. The response Louise receives from the heptapods to her question regarding their intentions on Earth is, interestingly, “Offer weapon.” This word weapon is the human interpretation of the heptapods’ conveyance; with interpretation comes connotation, and in this instance, the connotation is negative. This is a testament to convolutions of translation and how subtle differences in the connotations or semantics between words can have enormous ramifications in social context. In actuality, what the heptapods intend to express is an idea closer in meaning to the English word tool or technology. This quandary of course also arises in translating between human languages, as there can be lexical concepts represented by a word in one language for which there exists no word in another.

On a more basic level, we are all too familiar with the frustration stemming from the inability to adequately communicate our intent through our words available, even while speaking the same language; words are exchanged, and yet meaning is lost. Even still, the film ultimately calls attention to the touching significance linguistic utterances can hold: The words Louise speaks to General Shang on the phone are his most cherished: his wife’s dying words. Although our human language systems might be fraught with imperfections, communication is one of our few ways of traversing the distance between us, and language is ultimately our greatest tool in achieving understanding. Arrival ingeniously illustrates this idea.

With each subsequent viewing of this film, there is more to be understood and appreciated, finer details that, without the insights of the denouement, initially appear insignificant, but upon closer examination, reveal the masterful intricacy of the work. The film is undoubtedly a work of art, harboring boundless awareness and beauty. As Louise understands more and more of the heptapods’ language, she begins to experience fragmented visions of her future more often, and the boundaries between dreams, memories, and reality blur, morphing the human construct of time into singularity. These are moments we perhaps misinterpret upon first viewing, because we do not yet understand her cognitive journey. But every detail in the film is deliberate, and as an audience, we are fortunate enough to be led through its revelations by Amy Adams’ quietly resolute, inviting, and steady portrayal of Louise. Adams’ transformation into Louise brings forward the character’s heroism: her tireless efforts to achieve peace and her graceful acceptance of her role in such efforts, despite the emotional weight she must bear.

The film’s strong points even extend beyond its complex plot and solid acting: It is married with an innovative, expressive soundtrack by Johann Jóhannsson, evocative of both the alien and the familiarly human, particularly in its unusual vocals, thus creating a soundscape in which the two can coexist beautifully. Bradford Young’s cinematography is vast yet delicate, juxtaposing sheer beauty with eerie sci-fi, most notably the smoky face-to-face conversation Louise has with heptapod Costello, and subtly moving from shot to shot with a steady pace matching that of the narrative.

This is a film that is overall subtle in its construction but powerful in its delivery. Adams and Villeneuve lead us over an emotional landscape, all of which culminates in the final sequence. This sequence is one of the most beautiful, poignant, moving sequences I have ever seen in film, because, as an audience, we breathlessly experience not only the most tender moments themselves that constitute the life and relationships of our protagonist, but we also follow the exact cerebral journey that Louise has undergone. We are suddenly transfixed and achingly conscious of the reality that our construct of time no longer exists, but instead, the entirety of life swells and we feel its reverberations, experiencing everything at once. Arrival has a heart and mind of its own.