What's the Sound of One Hand Clapping

Rating: 8/10 (15 June 2018)

Visually, this movie is great. The lighthouse scene at the ending is very surrealistic. It reminded me a little of the ending in Kubrick's 2001. The science-fiction horror aspect reminded me of 'The Thing.' The bear is genuinely horrifying and creepy. It is a little more intelligent than 'The Thing' in that it isn't so obviously good guys against bad guys. But then, maybe it is a little too intelligent. It left me wondering wtf and running to find another video where somebody explains the movie to me. It think that it goes too far with being enigmatic because it loses some of its visceral impact in the process. It deals with some very interesting themes. The human instinct for self-destruction, and our sense of identity and the unity of life. I have a lot of respect for a movie production that is willing to sacrifice box office in order to be intelligent. However, a week after seeing the movie and thinking about it, I basically had to concede that it just didn't quite make sense to me, and then I have to wonder if the director just wasn't quite able to close the deal with his audience. So I can understand why many viewers probably feel frustrated and frankly offended by it. That was the way that I felt when I watched 'The Arrival.' If you have to watch a movie ten times in order to understand it, then the movie is not communicating effectively enough. It becomes like the Zen koan, 'What's the sound of one hand clapping.' Frankly, I liked 'The Thing' better.