there's something special about the
great sci-fi films when it comes to
exploring our humanity they often use
imaginative and alien concepts which
ultimately serve as a contrast to reveal
something intimate about ourselves some
deeper insight into our existence
I think arrival is one of those great
films and today I want to explore why
beginning with a brief analysis of its
main character loubies after 12 ships
carrying aliens known as hepta bots
arrived on earth linguistics professor
Louise gets tasked with communicating
with them to learn about their purpose
through a number of scenes with Louise
and her child which appeared to be her
memories it seems as if we're given a
backstory on her character however
towards the end of the film we learned
that these scenes from Louisa surpassed
our actually scenes from her future
which subverts our initial assumption
that Louise was a grieving mother
throughout the events of the film this
begs the question if Louise wasn't the
person we thought her to be then who was
she
if we look at the beginning of the film
without any assumptions about Louise's
her past I believe there are a number of
science that suggests that she is
someone who isn't fully embracing life
who is shying away from it
for starters Louise seems highly
attached to a comfort zone secluded from
the rest of the world which she
witnesses mostly to Windows and
television screens that she goes about
her daily routine she doesn't seem all
that excited about her job and generally
comes across as living a very quiet
uneventful life it is because of this
that she is also reluctant towards
change which becomes especially clear
when changes forced on her as the
the parts arrived from earth while the
rest of the world is reacting to this
monumental event Luby's appears to be
the only one who isn't fully processing
it as she shows up at her class to find
it empty this slow reaction to change is
also shown in the phone call with her
mother suggesting that she's been who
she is for quite some time we can even
see it later when Louise is unexpectedly
picked up in the middle of the night and
she asks for 20 minutes to get ready but
only receives 10 it's a small detail but
still another sign pointing towards
Louise's her slow reaction to sudden
change and our overall hesitancy to face
life but what can we tell about where
this hesitancy could come from if we
don't have a specific backstory for
Louise we can perhaps turn to a more
universal one in the denial of death
Ernest Becker writes about the two great
fears that are present in everyone and
characterize us as human beings these
are the fear of death and the fear of
life both I think are rooted in our
perception and experience of time
in my video on interstellar I explained
how we are free to move around within
spacial dimensions but are bound by the
arrow of time forced to experience this
dimension moment by moment from what we
see as the past towards what we see as
the future arrival to recognizes this
temporal imprisonment as Louise notes we
are so bound by time by its order and
yet we can perceive the arrow of time
witness our lives moving forward without
being able to alter this movement Ernest
Becker points out the paradox that
arises from our time transcending
perception are almost godlike ability to
oversee the whole concept of time while
at the same time being bound to a
physical body that dooms us to
inescapably experience all of it in a
predetermined order perhaps the most
important consequence of this paradox is
that we can perceive our own mortality
we know that someday we are going to die
and this naturally fills us with fear
interestingly out of this fear for
eventual an I elation also follows a
fear of life as Ernest Becker explains
the irony of man's condition is that the
deepest need is to be free of the
anxiety of death and annihilation but it
is life itself which awakens it and so
we must shrink from being fully alive to
put it simply life in its fullest is too
much to handle for limited beings such
as ourselves the incomprehensible
vastness of the universe and the
fundamental elusiveness of its purpose
the total mystery of our existence in
all its beauty and terror it's just too
much it's like you're staring into the
Sun and so we spring down from life make
it mundane and acceptable because in our
minds if we don't engage life we don't
have to engage death part of this
process is natural and even necessary to
make it through everyday life without
constantly being overwhelmed by our
existence and worrying about its
ultimate meaning but when we swing down
too much and hide away
in a protective bubble like Louise we
can end up missing life altogether which
is a shame because death will still come
for us showing again how the relentless
arrow of time is not hindered by our
fear of it
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I believe that we can view the coming of
the HEPA paths as an arrival of
existence itself where they have the
parts being a metaphor for exactly that
part of life that we are fearful of
aside from them being the literal light
at the end of the tunnel they appear to
have a complete perception of time and a
sense of purpose and meaning far beyond
our comprehension the attempt to
communicate with the hab departs can
therefore be seen as an attempt to
communicate with a manifestation of
existence but for that we need to
understand its language
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language is not just about communicating
with each other it is also a tool to
develop meaning in the world around us
language allows us to categorize to
normalize it allows us to look at
billions of uniquely organized atoms and
see something ordinary like a car or a
classroom it also allows us to construct
a sense of self a sense of comfort in
our own being
it lets us believe that we are in fact
someone in particular it distinguishes
me from you language stabilizes the
chaos of existence but only to a certain
extent because for all the possibilities
it offers it is also limiting it doesn't
allow us to articulate the entirety of
existence and therefore fails to
alleviate our fear of it this failure of
language to mitigate our fear of
existence is a major theme in arrival we
see it in the communication between the
different nations and in the rising
panic of its citizens whether this
mainly explored through the interactions
with the half the parts as Louise and
her team at them to understand the alien
language to ask the final question that
may as well be directed to all of
existence what is your purpose
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when Louise first anthos the alien ship
she is extremely hesitant to go up and
face to help the bots and when she does
she does so in protective gear and
interacts with the healthy parts from
behind the protective screen all of
which are signs of our default state of
fearfulness after the first encounters
Louise however realizes that she won't
be able to communicate if she lets
herself be dominated by fear and as her
understanding of their language grows
she starts to slowly break down the
barriers between her and the hexapods
showing how she quite literally is
coming out of her shell her growing
comfort around a half the paths also
seems to result in a growing comfort
around her colleague Ian but the
personal effects from learning to have
the bot language are of course most
obvious in the visions from her future
which are coming to her as memories this
is where we arrive at the most tricky
and perhaps also the most misunderstood
part of the film the gift of seeing the
future that is given to Louise by the
half the parts
there is an obvious paradox between
being able to see the future and having
free will in the present because if
there's a future event that I know about
in the present this means there must be
some coercive force pushing me towards
that specific event rendering my
freewill useless but if I know about a
future event then I exercise my freewill
to avoid it and I wasn't really able to
see the future in the first place I
think this paradox goes back to the
earlier mentioned paradox of our dual
nature knowing that the complete course
of time already exists while being stuck
in a consciousness that is forced to
move along with the arrow of time only
able to look backwards but never
forwards and yet I believe that in this
paradox we can find the true meaning of
the half the parts gift but only if we
don't look at it in the literal sense
because that will only lead to logical
and possibilities instead I think the
more important question is what does it
really mean for Louise to know her
future aside from using her new
awareness to solve the international
crisis on a more personal level it seems
as if he no longer lets fear dominate
the course of her existence
she no longer hides away from life
because she already knows exactly what
will come and embraces it both the good
things and the bad
it has to do with a really rare disease
and it's unstoppable
kind of like you are you're swimming
and your poetry and all the other
amazing things that you share with the
world
her new language allowed her to
construct meaning and articulate
existence in such a way that it
alleviated her fear of it and that I
think is the true meaning behind the
help-o-bots gift in fact when you think
about her Louise's her life would have
played out if the half the baths had
never arrived stuck in her routine
forever hugging a body pillow the
hapsburgs gift can even be seen as the
gift of life itself as the moment that
made Louise choose existence over
non-existence so what does all this mean
for the audience what message does
arrival have for us if we unlike Louise
cannot see the whole of our existence
and can therefore never be truly freed
from our fear of it in the short story
the question is raised that if they have
the parts already know everything that's
going to happen why do they need
language at all or in Louise's her case
if she already knows her future why
would she still choose to live it to
address this issue that Jiang refers to
the speech act theory which points out
that language is also a performative act
according to speech act theory
statements like you're under arrest
I christened this vessel or I promise
we're all performative a speaker could
perform the action only by uttering the
words for such acts knowing what would
be said didn't change anything everyone
at the wedding anticipated the words I
now pronounce you husband and wife
but until the minister actually said
them the ceremony didn't count with
performative languages saying equals
doing this could very well be applied to
Louise was her new perception of
existence she knows what is going to
happen but it is only when she performs
the actions that it becomes real which
again she is able to do because she is
no longer afraid I would argue that this
also applies to us as we do in a way
already know our future we may not know
the specific events that will happen to
us like Louise does but we do know with
absolute certainty that someday we are
going to the
and that we will never exist again we
know that along the way there will be
sorrow and pain there will be moments
when life seems overwhelming and
impossible to endure when we will suffer
deeply but they can also be beauty and
love in tiny and monumental moments when
life feels perfect and profound the
point is that if we let ourselves be
consumed by our fear of all this we will
never experience any of it and we will
hide away from life until we're left
with nothing but regret when Louise asks
Ian what he would do if he was able to
change the past
he answered maybe a few I think most of
us wish that they would have done things
differently in the past but only if you
really let those regrets guide their
choices in the present for most of us
our fear of existence is persistent and
continues to hold us back from fully
embracing life from treasuring every
moment so if arrival taught me anything
it is to look at life and ask myself
what would I do if I wasn't afraid
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you