*SPOILERS*- Recently I got the chance to see the new film directed by Dennis Villeneuve titled ‘Arrival’ and I was quite surprised at the outcome of the film. Initially, I wasn’t too keen on seeing this film because, upon watching the trailer, I thought it just another space invasion movie. Now I am very glad that I am wrong.
It can be easy to see how tense things can get when an alien ship lands on Earth, but when several land simultaneously it can really test the human race, and that is the point. The film addresses the scenario of how humans respond when in a stressful and tense situation. When the alien visitors come and they simply do nothing but wait for human response, multiple personalities can be seen: Those who seek to communicate with the aliens in a calm and peaceful manner to figure out what they want and those who would also try to communicate, but with more hostility. Thus, we reach the underlying moral of this film.
We see in the film that through the determination of Dr. Banks (Adams) and Donnelly (Renner), they find out through the more diplomatic approach that the aliens are actually peaceful. Through this action we can see that the use of words and diplomacy can be one of the strongest weapons that mankind possesses, and that many of the problems that we have today can be solved by simple negotiation and communication instead of the brutish showing of force that we rely on heavily.
The film also shows how humans handle situations where we, as a civilization, are threatened. In the film, it shows the basic, and very primitive, nature of humans which is attack first and ask questions later. The reason for this is because humans are scared of what we don’t understand and we can see examples of this throughout history as well, but the moral of this film shows that maybe we as humans should try to understand first. Even though this is a great moral and a valuable lesson, there are times where the argument could be posed for the opposite side of the spectrum, but that is a topic for another day.
Films R Us 