Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/759468
DECEMBER 7-13, 2016 UCW 21 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Sapir and Whorf Are Smiling Arrival (Rated PG-13) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS Arrival (116 minutes) is an overly cerebral science fiction from Director Dennis Villenueve. It uses the famous, long discredited, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as a jumping off point to explore themes of existentialism, fate, and interspecies communication. I found it acceptable, though I didn't make any emotional connection to the story. Having seen what Villenueve can do with this sort of material, however, I wouldn't mind seeing him take on Russell's The Sparrow. I know several linguists, and I am happy they finally have a movie that caters to their particular brand of geekiness so they can express the kind of smugness I reserve for movies with a sociologist (less than fifty come to mind). At the same time, I'm not sure that language or math (which is just another form of language) works the way the movie thinks it does. Louise Banks (Amy Adams, taking time off from furthering the genocide of the Kryptonians) is a smartypants with a dead daughter, or so we are led to believe by some opening exposition. Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner, taking time off from being the lamest Avenger) is a theoretical physicist. They meet when twelve alien craft land on Earth, tasked with figuring out how to communicate with an alien race called heptapods. Louise and Ian work under an Army guy named Weber (Forest Whitaker). He supervises their contact, but only sort of because they basically do whatever they want. There is some nice detail offered regarding the lengths humans go to in order to communicate with the aliens, including a nice bit with a canary. Since heptapods and humans need different air to breathe, the aliens have set up a nice viewing chamber for their guests. But, the humans always bring a tiny, sweet, precious, canary with them. That way, if the aliens turn out to be jerk aliens that slowly poison the room, the canary dies first. While I get the "canary in the coalmine," I just don't think the military thought it through. The death of the canary will give the humans precious seconds to flee the immediate area, but if the aliens deliberately poison the air and then see the humans flee, won't they just kill the team another way? Also, it won't save them from sudden violence, should they annoy our new alien overlords. At least the scientists waited more than a few minutes to take their helmets off in this movie, unlike Prometheus. Anyway, the heptapods communicate using pretty little circles, sort of like those abstract barbed wire tattoos on the biceps that only really tough guys get. Unlike the languages developed for the Klingons (Star Trek) and the Na'vi (Avatar), the heptapod pictograms do not represent a fully developed language. Even so, the pictograms are an important component to the plot. In short, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that the language both reflects and determines thought. While it has been discredited many times over, it does provide some insight on a culture when applied appropriately. From this hypothesis is born the plot of the movie — that learning an alien language can change the way a human mind operates. Philosophically speaking, since reality is socially constructed, and humans actively create the reality they inhabit, changing the human mind can change the nature of reality itself. I'm didn't quite buy what they were selling, but maybe I wasn't smart enough to afford the bill. Overall, I wasn't disappointed, exactly. Maybe I've seen to many "hard" science fiction films that are shot beautifully, only to leave me wishing they had been as good as the books that inspired them. Now showing at Patriot 14 + IMAX. HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910 484-6200. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17th SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17th Register by December 1st to guarantee a T-shirt Proceeds go to Ryan's Foundation and other charities providing services to children and cancer patients. Please Pre-Register online by December 1st www.ryansreindeerrun.com or www.active.com Starts at Medical Arts Building Field Race Day Registration @ 7:00 a.m. • Race Starts @ 8:30 a.m. R Y A N ' S R E I N DE E R R U N Expires 1/31/17 $i. 50 Drinks. $i. 50 Drinks. $i. 50 Drinks. $2.00 before 6:00 p.m. $3.00 after 6:00 p.m. $1.00 extra for 3D MOVIES Movie Monday: $1.50 All Day(Holiday or 3D movies excluded) Buy one get one free! Buy one get one free!