Movie Thoughts: Arrival
Nov. 22nd, 2016 06:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerCleaning up some piles of old correspondence a while ago, I managed to find two free movie passes in an envelope trying to get me to go back to a particular car service. Aware the passes would expire in the middle of next year, I got to wondering just what two movies I would try and see with them. One option opened up when I heard of a science fiction movie called Arrival. On going to see it, though, I did find myself thinking that what I'd managed to hear hadn't given too much about the movie away. That might have made it more interesting for me, but also left me half-convinced there'd be something gauche about turning around and saying too much to someone else in turn, as much as I want to share a positive opinion.
In any case, I'd at least known the movie involved that familiar theme of "first contact," with a linguist trying to work out an alien language. Watching the end credits, I wound up noticing the movie appeared based on a short story, which did leave me wondering if "military tension" had been added to an intellectual puzzle. I suppose I could contemplate the whole "adding something for the Chinese market" angle as well. Before that, the movie did seem to do a good job at establishing a disorienting and indeed "alien" situation, and just when things might have been worked out to the point of getting more "familiar" (marked by a block of voice-over exposition) a trick of the alien language started unsticking time in the movie itself. What might have carried overtones of "a resolution that didn't quite have to be worked for" could have been reconfigured with the sudden and stronger realisation the story wasn't a conventional "getting over something" tale. I might have thought a bit of the conclusion of Interstellar in contrast. A danger when it comes to some science fiction movies might seem to be them coming across as "presenting themselves as smarter than they quite are"; that feeling might not have been there in this case.
In any case, I'd at least known the movie involved that familiar theme of "first contact," with a linguist trying to work out an alien language. Watching the end credits, I wound up noticing the movie appeared based on a short story, which did leave me wondering if "military tension" had been added to an intellectual puzzle. I suppose I could contemplate the whole "adding something for the Chinese market" angle as well. Before that, the movie did seem to do a good job at establishing a disorienting and indeed "alien" situation, and just when things might have been worked out to the point of getting more "familiar" (marked by a block of voice-over exposition) a trick of the alien language started unsticking time in the movie itself. What might have carried overtones of "a resolution that didn't quite have to be worked for" could have been reconfigured with the sudden and stronger realisation the story wasn't a conventional "getting over something" tale. I might have thought a bit of the conclusion of Interstellar in contrast. A danger when it comes to some science fiction movies might seem to be them coming across as "presenting themselves as smarter than they quite are"; that feeling might not have been there in this case.