"Arrival" is adapted from the novel "The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, the most famous contemporary Chinese science fiction novelist in the United States. Ted Chiang has not many works. Since his debut in 1990, "The Tower of Babylon", he has published only eight works, all of which are short or medium-length works. Despite this, he enjoys a high reputation in the American science fiction world because his works are few but refined, and the pieces are masterpieces, and he has won the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Sturgeon Award, and the Campbell Award. The trophy for the Science Fiction Awards. "The Story of Your Life" is one of Ted Chiang's most famous works, so its film adaptation is highly anticipated by book fans and movie fans.
The movie tells the story of the linguist Louise who was sent by the government to communicate with the alien "heptapod" after the alien spacecraft descended on the earth. The language of the "heptapod barrel" does not rely on individual words to express meaning, but unites all the semantic meanings that need to be expressed in one word. This language form determines that its form of perceiving the world is different from that of humans. .
Human thinking is linear, driven by cause and effect, and events are arranged one after another. But the heptapod barrel thinking is non-linear and cyclical. The world they see includes both before and after, cause and effect, the past and the future. The experience is not to go through the unknown, but to complete the known process.
In communicating with the heptapod, Louise learned the language of the heptapod and the way it perceives the world. In this process, with a panoramic view of the future, Louise faces the dilemma of predicting the future and free will. When she foresaw that she would fall in love with a physics professor and have a lovely daughter, but her daughter would die unexpectedly in her most beautiful years, would she still choose to fall in love and give birth to a daughter? Louise's inner entanglement gives the work a strong expressive tension, and it goes straight to the core of science fiction to reflect on the existence of human beings.
Alien civilization has always been a popular branch of sci-fi themes. From the contact between alien civilization and human civilization, two different movie production trends have been derived: one is to render the "invasion" of aliens to humans, and the outbreak of war. , Civilization destruction, life and death, human beings bravely rise up to resist, this is often the standard mode of Hollywood genre movies, the scene is magnificent, the special effects are amazing, and it is full of high-tech killings, such as "Star Wars" and "Independence". "Day" and "Alien vs. Predator"; the other is the intersection of alien and human souls from different worlds. In the process of aliens and humans moving from unfamiliar to familiar, from doubts to trust, alien civilization has become a reference for human society, and human beings can examine their own experience and existence, such as "ET Alien", "Alien Paul", and "Outside "Star Drunkard vs. Earth God", science fiction is just a metaphor. It still tells stories about people and human nature, and it has become great because of its deep insight into the human situation and human nature.
"Arrival" obviously belongs to the latter. Time may prove that it is a great work. In this respect, because of the background color of the original novel, "Arrival" has the hard shell of science fiction, but because of the original text style, it has a soft and lyrical inner tone: it is a letter from a mother to her daughter. After foreseeing all the sadness, the journey of mixed feelings that a person chooses to go on is a reflection on the road of life.
On the other hand, it is because the production team of "Arrival" has done a good demonstration of how to convert text works into film and television drama works. Director Dennis Villeneuve, photographer Bradford Young, composer johann johannsson, art director Patrice Vermette, editor Joe Walker and other talented artists have completed a beautiful audiovisual language translation of the imaginative text. The whole movie is always immersed in a sentimental and poetic atmosphere, and we are immersed in it, as if we can empathize with Louise.
The heptapod barrel is not intended to invade humans, but its appearance, passed to Louise and all the audience, is a new way of looking at human self, and people will have a deeper understanding of their own destiny. Perhaps the meaning of life is not in the ending, but in knowing the ending and still bravely going through the process. Even if the future comes early, as long as there are beautiful things in life that we cherish and possess, this journey is worth our experience, even if there is happiness, there are years of decline, as well as loss, parting, choking or crying.
- starting litchi sharp commentary -
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