Arrival (12A.)
Directed by Denis Villeneuve.
Starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tzi Ma and Mark O'Brien. 116 mins
Having landed the job of making the little desired Blade Runner sequel, Canadian director Villeneuve, has decided to get his hand in by making a smaller scale, serious science fiction piece. His trial run is Close Encounters without Richard Dreyfuss; a first contact story without an everyman perspective. Instead we see everything through the eyes of the Truffaut figure, the expert: in this case the linguist (Adams) charged with trying to communicate with one of the twelve, giant grey eggs that have landed around the planet.
Sci-fi movies trying to deal seriously with encountering alien lifeforms are apt to disappoint, starting out stern but wilting pathetically towards the end. Often they are like being lead down a sleek minimalist corridor full of bleak modernist paintings, only to discover that at the end room there is a fluffy white teddy bear bearing the message I lub you.
Ominously, Arrival opens with Amy Adams reminiscing about her daughter who died young. Not a good start; you immediately fear that some great boulder of sentimentality is being loaded into a sling, ready to be lobbed in our direction at some point near the conclusion. Villenueve though is not a “heart” kind of guy; though Arrival is definitely more upbeat and hopeful that his previous films (though if you're previous films include Enemy, Sicario and Prisoners, that's not so much of a boast) and even has a few chuckles, it remains comparatively high minded. It is hard sci-fi with a human face.
Arrival takes on the things that these films often chicken out on. You do see the aliens. They aren't that original (they look like tree trunks playing the piano) but the attempt to imagine an alien language struck me as impressive and credible. The film does genuinely try to conceive of lifeforms that are beyond our conception.
The film attempts to make something that is slow paced, medium sized and thoughtful but which still engages with a wide audience. It is quiet and slow, but not wilfully so. Even so, it is not a film to go and see on a Saturday night, better to try and sneak into a matinee and hope it is mostly empty. The film has a quietness that needs to be replicated in the audience. You don't want a couple in front of you who fidget throughout and have to take little sips of their precious bottled water every ten minutes. In a film about the perils of communication, it is amazing how, in a hushed auditorium, such an action can be interpreted as hateful and provocative.
Directed by Denis Villeneuve.
Starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tzi Ma and Mark O'Brien. 116 mins
Having landed the job of making the little desired Blade Runner sequel, Canadian director Villeneuve, has decided to get his hand in by making a smaller scale, serious science fiction piece. His trial run is Close Encounters without Richard Dreyfuss; a first contact story without an everyman perspective. Instead we see everything through the eyes of the Truffaut figure, the expert: in this case the linguist (Adams) charged with trying to communicate with one of the twelve, giant grey eggs that have landed around the planet.
Sci-fi movies trying to deal seriously with encountering alien lifeforms are apt to disappoint, starting out stern but wilting pathetically towards the end. Often they are like being lead down a sleek minimalist corridor full of bleak modernist paintings, only to discover that at the end room there is a fluffy white teddy bear bearing the message I lub you.
Ominously, Arrival opens with Amy Adams reminiscing about her daughter who died young. Not a good start; you immediately fear that some great boulder of sentimentality is being loaded into a sling, ready to be lobbed in our direction at some point near the conclusion. Villenueve though is not a “heart” kind of guy; though Arrival is definitely more upbeat and hopeful that his previous films (though if you're previous films include Enemy, Sicario and Prisoners, that's not so much of a boast) and even has a few chuckles, it remains comparatively high minded. It is hard sci-fi with a human face.
Arrival takes on the things that these films often chicken out on. You do see the aliens. They aren't that original (they look like tree trunks playing the piano) but the attempt to imagine an alien language struck me as impressive and credible. The film does genuinely try to conceive of lifeforms that are beyond our conception.
The film attempts to make something that is slow paced, medium sized and thoughtful but which still engages with a wide audience. It is quiet and slow, but not wilfully so. Even so, it is not a film to go and see on a Saturday night, better to try and sneak into a matinee and hope it is mostly empty. The film has a quietness that needs to be replicated in the audience. You don't want a couple in front of you who fidget throughout and have to take little sips of their precious bottled water every ten minutes. In a film about the perils of communication, it is amazing how, in a hushed auditorium, such an action can be interpreted as hateful and provocative.
