Why are they here?

Rating: 7/10 (4 August 2018)

There are some films that tell you a story, and there are some films that impose an idea. "Arrival" enters in the list of films that share and impose an idea. Before talking about its idea, I have to say that even though "Arrival" is a science fiction drama film, it has nothing to do with classic science fiction examples. Its atmosphere is calm and very much focused on the message it shares. In my opinion "Arrival" is one of the best films of 2016 and one of the best science fiction films of all times. It brings an enormous difference to the sci-fi genre. "Arrival" chooses communication over action, and this brought the film eight Academy Awards nominations including, Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Achievement in Directing, Best Achievement in Cinematography. It won only one of them which is Best Achievement in Sound Editing. I don't know the criteria about sound editing or sound mixing but now, when I think about the soundtracks, it makes a perfect sense to me what they mean by sound editing and sound mixing. I have enjoyed the performance of Amy Adams, as a talented linguist, and even though this performance goes unrecognized by the Academy, she manages to get herself a nomination in the Golden Globes for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture Drama. "Arrival" is based on 1998 short story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. It is directed by Denis Villeneuve, who is known to be also the director of Incendies, Prisoners and Blade Runner 2049. All these films are in the list of IMDB's top 250 films. Starting with Interstellar and continuing with "Arrival," the change in sci-fi genre has begun and in the near future we can expect more films like this.
What would have happened if one day visitors from other planets would come to Earth? How would we communicate with them? Would we attack them, or would we try to talk with them? How would we understand their purpose? What if they are sharing a friendly message and big capitalist countries ignore it? Basically, this is the idea and exit point of "Arrival." One day, twelve extraterrestrial spacecrafts land in twelve locations across the earth. No one knows why they are there and what they want. So, US Army recruits a bunch of people including Louise (Amy Adams) and physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), trying to find out one important answer, "why they have come to earth" With different attempts, Louise and Ian manage to communicate with the seven-limbed aliens and find out why they came. They came to help humanity by sharing a language which helps perceive the future and the past for those who can master that language. Louise understands the message when she cracks the code and finds out that each twelve spacecrafts share a part of the message, and in order for the message to be perceived, each country must collaborate and share their piece of message. Eventually world unites and when the message is understood, spacecrafts disappear.
After writing the story a bit detailed, I would like to share the famous idea of the film. It tells us to unite and gather around one civilization in order to go forward as one. This is of course a utopia, but it still makes you think about its benefits. Using the power of past and future, Louise manages to convince Chinese military general not to attack the aliens. With little efforts the world can unite around a language. "Arrival" shows us the probability of this. Some people criticized the film for sharing Neo-Liberal propaganda, but in my opinion, the last thing "Arrival" wants to do is propaganda. It is using an interesting subject to share a valuable message. It focuses on the importance of time, communication, language and life. It criticizes globalism which creates the biggest problems on Earth.
From performances to the story, from soundtracks to camera angles, "Arrival" is a very well-made film. Due to its story, it progresses very slowly, but this is very much expected from a film like this, because it chooses communication over action. If we would learn to communicate before fighting, the world would have been a much better place. This is the most important message that "Arrival" shares.