My Review of Arrival

Plot: 

The aliens land on Earth, which speculates a lot of fear into the people as it is something they have never seen before. The plot of the film is to help Dr. Louise Banks, realise her potential to see her own future, and that with that kind of power, she controls humanity's fate and her own.

Meaning/Message:

The film held many messages, the one which stood out most to me was about communication. To me, the main message that the film was trying to bring across was that it is communication which brings everyone together, whether we are of different nationalities, race, gender or even social class. In the film, Agent Halpern says "...If only we had a leader to lead all of us, things would run smoothly." But as communication is so powerful it can be used as a weapon quoted by Dr. Louise Banks, "Language is the foundation of civilisation. It is the glue that holds a people together. It is the first weapon drawn in a conflict."

Another message I got from the film was that time is precious. The character, Dr. Louise Banks, in the film gets continuous flashes of memories of her daughter, as at the beginning of the film we see that her daughter died from cancer at such a young age, we see memories in which builds up to the moment she realises that she is able to see her own future, at the end of the film, she asks her close colleague, Ian Donnelly, that if he was able to see his own future, would he change any of it. And so to conclude this message about time, it shows that we must use what little time we have on this earth meaningfully.

Method:

In this film, they use many things to convey a story which is more dynamic and interesting by using different things to symbolise different messages within the film. For example, they mainly used dull and dark colours, unless Dr. Louise Banks had memory flashes of her daughter, this meaning that in those memories she sees, she is much happier, whereas in the present, she is in a way emotionless without her daughter there.

Another method I have noticed is, when they first went into the spaceship, they are lifted into this dark somewhat, alleyway, to me I feel that the darkness represents mystery and unexpectedness such as the future.