ARRIVAL
To compare the story of the movie to one of the eight basic stories.
The main character of ‘Arrival’: Louise Bank, a linguist.
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She was surprising me in this film. She played the truth of each moment with her own characters. I thought that she was just basically as an interpreter, but not, it goes much deeper than that.
They are a mystery, she is the key.
- Arrival
ORPHEUS
Story about the gift taken away by someone, and there will be the loss of something personal. Either about the tragedy of the loss itself or the search which follows the loss.
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Orpheus is a Greek myth about a musician who descends into the underworld to reclaim his dead wife, and so enchants the gods with the music of his lyre that they permit her to return to the land of the living and he condition is that he never looked at her.
Between arrival and Orpheus, I have found out there has similarities on the scene that give and take. Hereby, let’s find out the similarities on what they gift and what they loss.
From the movie of arrival, I found out there has two gifts that alien gave to Louise. The first given is the impending doom of which Costello warns (with non-linear time, 3,000 years is just a second away), he and the other eleven Heptapod hosts intend to impart their nonlinear perception of time to all of mankind. It is implied that the universal “invasion” was intended to serve as the twelve- point dissemination for the Heptapod language. Despite their best efforts at executing this global diaspora, only Louise proved accessible and humble enough to actually listen and learn it. Language is the one of gift that alien gave to the earth.
The second given is along with the American soldiers planting explosives in Abbott and Costellos’ ship, the rest of the world congress elected to take a more approach to the Heptapods, completely missing the truth of the aliens’ benevolent mission. While the rest of the world sees them as a clear and present danger, Louise has effectively had her mind rewired to speak the limitless language of the aliens and break the human boundaries of time. Here, we had seen that communication can prevent the wars more than the force. Besides that, Louise’s prescience is the essential component to convince Shang of the Heptapods’ gift, of the relative nature of time and of the importance for the international community to rally as one.
Orpheus was the son of one of the Muses and a Tracian prince. His mother gave him the gift of music and Thrace where he grew up fostered it. He fell in love with the girl he met, Euridice. But their joy was brief, a viper stung her and she died. Orpheus was so sad about the loss of his love, he took the fearsome journey to the underworld. He got a permission of bringing his loved back to the surface of the earth to enjoy the light of day. But there was a condition – Orpheus was not to look back as he ascended. He gave Euridice life, but he lost her.
What Louise loss? Illness and death of her child, the bleak worldview of her, and her husband leaved in the scene of Louise’s prescience. As it turns out, the palindromic function of the story tells us that these scenes of love and loss are neither flashback nor flashforward, but one in the same. At last, she chooses to follow, not to change. Because she think that future maybe will not as same as her prescience, there will be variable.
Life is a journey, not a destination.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Last but not least, I should say, although we can’t see how our life turned out but we can still choose the life that we want to live in. Arrival is a nice movie.