"Arrival" (2016)

My fifth favorite film of the year in 2016 was not a perfect film. It had beautiful cinematography, but it was also one of those slow meditative movies that such visual movies tend to be. Think “2001” or any Terrence Malick film. Those sorts of film can work when they are having you meditate on something worthwhile, but fall apart if their “message” is silly. They are in danger of being “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” It can be very subjective. I loved “Tree of Life” but tend to scoff at “2001.” “Arrival” falls somewhere in between.

The conceit of “Arrival” is that the earth is visited by aliens whose language has no concept of time—tense if you will. And, it might be a “chicken or the egg” situation, but this makes it possible for them to see what will happen in the future. When the heroine of our film—a linguist—learns their language, she gains this ability as well.

This is very interesting… to a point. It is true that every language offers a new, slightly different way of viewing the world. And learning new languages causes us to gain new perspectives. It is one of the reasons I think everyone should learn new languages. Of course, it requires really learning to speak, not just a few dozen vocabulary words. If you become fluent—or nearly fluent—in a language, you discover new ways of thinking about things.

Of course, where the film falls apart is supposing that overcoming the concept of “tense” will enable someone to see into the future. That is rather silly. We can assume that the aliens already had this ability, and their odd language is a reflection of that perspective. However, it is a bridge too far to think that learning their way of communication will do more than merely reflect their perspective. We are not trapped in time because our communication is; we communicate tense because we are trapped in time.

Still, it is a beautiful film with a somewhat entertaining brain puzzle of a plot and another twist that you sadly, ultimately figure out early in the process.