In general, good science fiction can be divided into two categories: high concept and high story. The former constructs the story from the concept, and the latter integrates the concept from the story. Taking these two as the coordinates, we will find that "Arrival" is far more difficult to locate than the original short story "The Story of Your Life" by Chinese sci-fi writer Jiang Fengnan-the most similar to it is Robert Zemikis's "Time and Space" in 1997. get in touch with". This difference may be a matter of adaptation and development, and the root cause can be traced back to the essential difference in the transmission of information between literature and film and television as different carriers.
But in any case, "Arrival" is Dennis Villeneuve's largest movie so far, and it is also one of the few science fiction movies with strong classical colors since the new century. Villeneuve's choice of subject matter is very complicated, but the small angle of narrative and the special attention to the characters' hearts have made him one of the most promising filmmakers in today's film industry. With the takeover of Ridley Scott’s "Blade Runner", we sincerely hope that Villeneuve’s unique literary and artistic lens language can bring it closer to the award affirmation, instead of staying alone like the former Regret.
The biggest difference between "Arrival" and Villeneuve's previous works-such as "Prisoner" and "Border Killer"-is that it does not choose dark or distorted expressions in the performance of human nature. On the contrary, Villeneuve chose a more relaxed but still serious tone and atmosphere to create this unique alien movie.
And this is what makes "Arrival" so incredible. Villeneuve injected similar elements from Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey in "Arrival", making the whole story not only visually stunning, but also very fascinating. "Arrival" does not rely on constructing a conflict between humans and aliens, but still allows the audience to engage in it and enjoy the process. In most of the time, every time the protagonist interacts with an alien, the opponent is covered in mist and does not show up, and the audience does not get a lot of seemingly lively but empty action scenes in the process. , But a new way of knowing and perceiving-but it requires the audience to think actively, not just passively accept it. When I finally left the cinema, I actually took this movie as a starting point to rethink the ultimate meaning of life and the world.
Another key reason for the success of this film is the correct choice of actors. Abandoning the cliche role setting in similar movies, "Arrival" maintains the stress response of ordinary people as much as possible, rather than one hero after another. Whether for personal experience or acting skills, Amy Adams is the best candidate for the heroine of "Arrival" and the most effective driving core of the movie. In this film, she convincingly shows her life journey from fear in her heart to gaining strength and courage, and a series of interspersed future flashbacks also fully reveal her attitude and courage when facing a known destiny. Although Jeremy Renner is difficult to make appointments, it is more than enough to play a physicist who lacks a sense of humor—slightly better than Matthew McConaughey in "Overtime Contact". As a cost-effective minority actor at the Oscar level, Forest Whitaker has not had many memorable performances in recent years, which makes it difficult to bring up his spirits, not like Morgan Freeman, who is about to enter his old age. Has a good output efficiency. And his performance in "Arrival" is also the same as the role in the film-just to get answers and complete tasks to find the safest and most humane solution to the alien incident. There is nothing to blame. .
As a science fiction movie, "Arrival" puts more energy on the interpretation of language. Compared with the typical science fiction points in the original work that began with physics and mathematics, "Arrival" eliminated the potential demand for the audience's scientific knowledge background, and turned it to the humanities field-no longer discussing the least effect and the principle of variation. Even without discussing the specific details and meanings of Wolf’s hypothesis and the theory of linguistic relativity-but in a macroscopic and practical way of expression, it concisely and clearly shows the "Babel effect" on a cosmic scale: each country and Civilizations have very different interpretations of the language of aliens. The lack of clear mutual understanding will cause fear and paranoia, and may lead to global wars (China's role in this is very interesting). But "Arrival" tells us that although the future is not always hope and light, although there will always be pain and fear in the future, never, never lose confidence.
Although the fate has been fixed, the blessings will be rewarded by oneself.
Frankly Speaking, a science fiction movie about alien invasion, has reached a dead end. And "Arrival" is like the same clear current, rediscovering the "lost beauty"-whether it is "Earth Stagnation Day", "Overtime Contact" or Spielberg's early "Third Type of Contact", or even " The aliens in "AI" a hundred years later are all kind of compassionate, supernatural and friendly. The so-called "rule of survival" that "non-my race must be punishable" is no longer applicable here, but to reflect on the bad tendencies in the depths of human nature through comparison, to highlight the value of goodness and to achieve the sublimation of the theme.
The adapted script written by the screenwriter Eric Hessel is quite clever-this is evident from his previous remakes of "Freaks" and "Ghost Street", which can retain the basic structure and structure of the original work. The essence has its own unique temperament of the times. "The Story of Your Life" itself is a short sci-fi work that can no longer be typical. It is short and rigorous and self-consistent. It gives full play to the infinite nature of the novel as a carrier in narrative time and space and perspective. It maintains a high degree of warmth and enthusiasm, based on science. And rich in humanistic care. "Arrival" made necessary changes on this basis to meet the narrative needs of the film. The heroine's super-sensual experience still has a pivotal position, but necessary additions and subtractions have been made in the main line: aliens" The bilingual system of "Heptapod Bucket" has been streamlined, and the gradual reasoning and scientific research process has been replaced by several cutscenes and epiphany inspired by divine inspiration, and by this, the humanistic style of the original work is elevated to the discussion of divinity. At the same time, the introduction of the international environment created time urgency and dramatic conflict-although not the original intention, but not abrupt. It is worth mentioning that in the eyes of Villeneuve and Heysel, China has replaced Russia and has become the main opponent of the next Hollywood era. With the influx of Chinese capital into Hollywood today, this bold and outspoken expression is very commendable.
Through "Arrival", Villeneuve's personal style has become stronger and more pleasing to the eye. Similar to "Border Killer", the whole movie is like a natural artwork. The performance, dialogue, photography, music, script, editing and director form an elegant whole. This is a seemingly simple and amazing feat.
Villeneuve has once again created its unique aesthetic style: the film’s soundtrack was created by Villeneuve’s long-term collaborator, Icelandic musician John Johansson (also participated in the music creation of many domestic films). It is solemn, sublime, and rigorous, yet soft and sensual. The photography is led by Bradford Yang, who has a strong literary atmosphere. Although it is the first time to encounter science fiction works, the picture still remains quiet and stable, full of beauty and hierarchy, and pays attention to the shaping of the atmosphere.
Villeneuve made good use of the advantages of this image language. Instead of throwing a blockbuster on the screen, he slowly established a series of small events, and then let them surround the central figure in an orderly manner. It wasn't until the last scene that the meaning burst out completely.
And when everything came to an end, what remained in the audience's mind was not the strange aliens, but the emotional power and humanity within them. In the eyes of most ordinary audiences, science fiction and sci-fi movies are synonymous with escapism and vain—it is true that this is the fact (Part of it), but now this function has become a playground for superheroes. It's time for science fiction films to restore their critical irony and progressive nature: the prospect of the future gives them forward-looking and allegorical nature, not only in technology, but also in humanities.
However, "The Story of Your Life" is not a sci-fi work that is so easy to adapt. Even if it is as complete as "Arrival", it has its inevitable compromise. Jiang Fengnan’s "The Story of Your Life", Robert Heinlein’s "You Resurrection Corpses", and a series of Philip K. Dick’s short science fiction novels are similar, giving full play to the advantages of the novel as a text carrier, with the most concise The form expresses the richest content and provides a lot of room for interpretation. However, on the road to a two-hour movie adaptation, there must be a lot of adaptation work to be done: it can be a full-scale action like Paul Van Hoven’s "Total Recall", or it can be almost unrecognizable abstraction like "Predestination" Style remake. But the approach of "Advent" is more similar to Ridley Scott's work in "Blade Runner" and Spielberg's work in "Minority Report": that is the high emphasis on abstract concepts (not just A gimmick, but treat it as the core of the film).
The biggest challenge facing "Arrival" is that "The Story of Your Life" jumps in different time and space while maintaining the overall sense of perfection. However, this perfection is based on the written art form of literature: writing can be easily used. It expresses this kind of chaotic narrative across the time dimension without affecting normal reading; but the movie is not good, and the narrative of the movie needs a basic timeline. Even "Cloud Atlas", even "Interstellar", we can see that the stories of each time and space reach the end at the same time at the final climax, because their narratives in different time and space are independent and have their own sub-timelines. To complete the intersection.
But "The Story of Your Life" and "Arrival" can't do it-their own story is weak, and they pay more attention to the perceptual and ideological understanding and knowledge of the audience. Except for a clear line of alien language research in the story, the rest is disordered (no timeline) and disordered (chaotic timeline), fragmented life fragments-even Terrence Marek in "Life" The few words in the tree also have a basic time trend.
This time trend is precisely the biggest difference between film and literature, oral language and written language-and the latter difference is precisely explained by the two languages of the "heptapod" in the original novel. The core element of-quite interesting, but also quite ironic.
Therefore, some literary works are indeed difficult to transform into film and television works-this is an inherent defect between different information carriers.
In other words, "Arrival" is an excellent science fiction film, but it is not an adaptation film that can fully express the essence of the original.
It is hard to say that Villeneuve's approach in "Arrival" is revolutionary-because he is just trying his best to restore the original literary style. But there is no doubt that Villeneuve's attempt to adapt science fiction movies is based on his deep understanding of the subject of science fiction. With "Arrival", Villeneuve has the strength to be among the most important science fiction directors of the 21st century along with Christopher Nolan and the dirty driver's sister and brother. And considering Rodrigo Curtis’s focus and performance on supernatural subjects, we will find that Villeneuve’s influence on current science fiction movies is very similar to the former’s influence on supernatural subjects.
Similar to "American Gods", along with Robert Heinlein's famous novel "A stranger" will also be adapted from an American drama, we will see more classic and more literary social sciences in the future Humanistic fantasy novels were transformed into film and television works. I hope "Arrival" can be the guiding light for these films in the future, and stop following the footsteps of "Ander's Game".
"Arrival" not only triggers the audience's thinking, but also arouses the audience's questions and thirst for exploration. The most important thing is that it is worthy of in-depth analysis. Of course, due to differences in cost, subject matter, and even director’s qualifications, its appeal and performance are not as good as other sci-fi movies of the same period in the autumn and winter period in recent years ("Gravity" in 13 years, "Interstellar" in 14 years, 15 "The Martian" in 1970) is so dazzling, but the most classical style can definitely provide the audience with plenty of satisfaction.
Villeneuve is undoubtedly the most eye-catching new star in the past 10 years. To some extent, "Arrival" is not a movie, but an experience. And this kind of experience, in any case, is a kind of incomplete beauty. But this kind of shortcoming is precisely its allure.
Isn't this complicated and unspeakable just our original yearning for literature and film?
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