A brand new view of the fundamental question of cause & effect

Rating: 10/10 (16 February 2019)

Arrival is my personal favorite of 2016, where Denis Villeneuve created a seemingly new interpretation on one of our fundamental understanding of the world in cinematic history.
In traditional Buddhism and several other cultures, there a fundamental rule of cause & effect. It says, everything is the effect or consequence of someone/ something's actions, where they supposedly act with their reasons and using that logic anything cannot happen without a cause. I have found it very real, and I believe this movie has given me a new view of my understanding of this ancient philosophy. In the film, it once seemed like the Aliens invaded earth, a neighbor-friendly planet. However, after Dr. Banks recognized the truth of Heptapodian, the alien language where speakers spoke in circles, with an encrypted start & end. The unique feature of their language made them able to know the cause & effect (result) of anything related to the matter being spoken. Hence, they can understand the beginning of everything, and primarily the impact/ consequence of everything long before the things took place in human's, our, normal timeline. (not sure normal can be defined this way tho) The Heptapods, are doing things that know will be done by them, where they can see the future without the ability to alter it with their wills. It is a fascinating setting, even for a fictional species of alien, where people generally have an extraordinary imagination. Dr. Banks' ability to master that language made her almost omnipotent on her knowledge of everything that will happen in her life. She knew about the death of her daughter, the break-up between her husband and her, even before she met the aliens. Tho, it brought me back to the question over cause & effect. As narrated in the movie, the arrival of the Heptapods was justified to a great extent. The purpose of their lives can be seen as doing things that have to been done, with an unknown reason for their inability to alter the future that they knew, or they can but ethically refuse to do so. Dr. Banks, unfortunately, met the same fate, where she knew about heart-breaking moments that will happen in her life, as well as the pains she will carry, but she obeys the future anyway, which took extraordinary courage, since that much passion is hard to find on an expert linguist with an outstanding reputation. If one knew the cause & effect of everything in his/ her life, what would they possibly do? The movie seemed to have given a perfect answer, where one being, no matter races, would do things that require to be done while having zero freedom of choices. In many religions, there's always a belief of fate, where we, human, do things that we think are the choices we made, but are already destined to be so, including our thoughts on making the decision. But what if fate can be known? Does arrival say that the person will do the same thing that he/she did before, or is it also a part of his/her fate?
I know most of these things bring applause to the screenplay writers, but the way those profoundly philosophical things were carried out in the film was appallingly amazing. The heart-shaking moments were processed calmly and wisely, where matters related to family, love, relationship, alien, life, cause & effect can rarely be discussed in a film without any fusses.
Arrival is a marvelous masterpiece.