By Gabriel Renggli
The number one priority, Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) explains, is learning why they are here. The problem with that, linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) explains, is knowing whether we are capable of asking the question, whether they are capable of understanding it, and whether we are capable of processing a potential answer.
In linguistics, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that how you see the world depends on the language you use. I’m not a linguist myself (my speciality is literature), but I’m an intuitive believer in at least a weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. I know from experience that I think and act differently in English than in my native language. By the end, Arrival will have asked you to accept a very strong version indeed of this idea: our physical reality itself is structured by how we speak.
The reason this rather large claim does not fall flat on its face is that Arrival is so well made. This is captivating film-making, employing a simple three-act structure to stunning effect. The first act is more or less taken up by establishing the stakes, and they are high. Aliens land on earth, twelve crafts scattered over the globe in no discernible pattern. What follows is, in a way, pretty formulaic. Yes, we focus largely on the American landing site; yes, the military rushes in to cordon off the ship; yes, they soon helicopter in a number of experts. Godzilla films use that structure. But director Denis Villeneuve’s film-making is delicate, alert to the significance of the events.
There’s a tall building. Some people live at the top. Some at the bottom. Do you get it?
There’s something about trilogies. If one film is a monolith, and two films are a cash-in, then three films can be a commanding multi-volume presence, exuding an air of purpose and intent. To speak of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King does not convey the same degree of grandeur as referring to the trilogy in toto as The Lord of the Rings. Aki Kaurismäki, famously, classifies many of his films into groups of three in order to stop himself from becoming complacent (even though more than four years after Le Havre, audiences are still waiting for parts two and three of what would be the Finnish master’s third proclaimed trilogy).
Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant, based on Michael Punke’s eponymous 2002 novel, which offered a fictionalised account of American frontiersman Hugh Glass’ incredible journey back to civilization following a near-fatal bear attack, is a strange animal indeed. Knowledge of the film’s turbulent production history almost inevitably bleeds into any kind of assessment, while its unflinchingly raw, visceral, ostentatiously serious nature helps to mask the ethical issues a more thorough analysis of intention and audience guidance might potentially raise.
The Zurich English Student 