Video from Beauty of
"When twelve mysterious spacecrafts appear around the world, linguistics professor Louise Banks is tasked with interpreting the language of the apparent alien visitors." video introduction
The Beauty of Arrival
Arrival is one of my favorite movies. It is a movie that requires you to think. It at its most basic level not a movie about aliens but a movie about relationships, time, life and death. It is about being in the world and learning in the brief time we have how to understand at least some of it.
Like many movies Arrival does not address God directly yet as the movie takes us through the travails of these people God is evident and at work.
As you watch this video the editing and the music score are haunting and I believe require us to break down our barriers and admit to our weakness and need for not only other people but God.
Death is in your face from the beginning as we are taken through this linear and non-linear story about time and loss and yes gain as well.
Director Denis Villeneuve and Screenwriter Eric Heisserer has adapted the novella Story of Your Life by the SF author Ted Chiang; he brings to life. The cinematography of Bradford Young (Selma) is breathtakingly mesmerizing, still and patient.
Director Denis Villeneuve is becoming one of the best/smartest cinematic storytellers in the world, creating nuanced and intimate scenes that grip our emotions and are at times awe inspiring.
Jóhann Jóhannson’s score is a brilliant and emotive. Jóhannson’s instrument of choice is the human voice. To help convey the film’s themes on language and communication, Jóhannson got the help of an international vocal ensemble "Theatre of Voices". The “Heptapod B,” the sheer strangeness of the arrangement affects you immediately, whereas other composers might build tension with violins and cellos, Jóhannson instead floods the track with wordless choruses and chants, creating an arrangement that sounds like some otherworldly ritual. When the score is more traditional in arrangement, it doesn’t feel conventional in it's sound. “Arrival” is able to bring tension out of a plot based around linguistics and neuroscience, and its score is a major reason why that works.
If you haven't seen Arrival yet make sure you do.