Dept. of Beautiful Things

[kaffy_r]

I Saw "Arrival"

And it was pretty much magnificent. Dennis Villeneuve has created an amazing film based on Ted Chiang's novella "Story of Your Life." I have not read the story, but based on what I saw today, I'll be buying it soon. 

It is elegant, intellectually clean, unsettling, and challenging. It is emotionally sonorous. It is beautiful. Amy Adams deserves so much praise for every minute change on her face and in her eyes. Every character, human or otherwise is treated with respect and, as a result, acts in ways that are understandable. The music is amazing, the message about humanity, language, love, and fear, and time, and more, are what you make of them. 

If this doesn't win a ton of awards, I will be very disappointed. 

Comments

[shanghaied]

Ooh! We almost went to see it two nights ago, but illness intervened so we'll be going on Sunday. Concept sounded excellent and trailers looked very promising, so it's good to learn that that promise is fulfilled.

[kaffy_r]

I hope you got a chance to see it; I'd be interested in what you thought of it.

[shanghaied]

Erm, did we encounter a dateline glitch? No 'got' yet, as that's this coming Sunday (the 4th of December) that we intend to see it! +-)

[kaffy_r]

Urgh. Nope, just got ahead of myself there.

[shanghaied]

Sorry I took so long to get back to you, but I didn't want to rain on the parade straightaway.

Unfortunately, I have to say that Arrival was an enormous disappointment. A well-meaning and (mostly) conceptually interesting story was ruined for me by...

1) a lead actor who... well... can't. She really, really can't. I've no idea how you reached Amy Adams deserves so much praise for every minute change on her face and in her eyes, since I, and every other person I've spoken to who saw the film (and/or other films with Adams in them) agreed - emphatically! - that she was wet, uncharismatic and incapable of selling the character. With so many good actors out there, it boggles me how she came to be chosen :-(

2) the director's decision to go all art-film-y with the flashbacks (not spoilering in case anyone else reads this, of course), added to the IMO generally poor pacing - and no, I'm not referring to slowness; there are many stunning 'slow' films, including Brotherhood of the Wolf, Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive, and yes, Kill Bill 2, to name but a few. But Arrival wasn't just slow. It dragged. Horribly. Dragged so much that I fell asleep from sheer boredom for a couple of minutes in the middle, something that's not happened since I went to see ~shudders~ Inception some years ago.

3) Forest Whittaker's mumbling and general poor projection. He's far from one of my favourite actors anyway, and the way he played/was told to play this character irritated me no end. (On the upside, at least the irritation kept me awake more often).

4) the score was shite. No arguments listened to about this. Crap score, and very unimpressive sound effects too.

Yes, there were a few good parts. Renner always gives value for money, eve if his range is limited. And the aliens were quite possibly the best and most alien aliens ever shown in film; full marks to their creators and actualisers for coming up with entities that were at the same time disturbingly bizarre and want-to-touch-them fascinating. But overall I found Arrival to be a failure and a disappointment.

For the record, my DB was less harsh about the film itself but also totally agreed with (1), (2) and (4) above o_0

So there you have it. Different strokes in the extreme!

[kaffy_r]

Ah, it does, indeed, come down to personal tastes, doesn't it? One of the things that made me smile after I saw the movie was the realization that I wouldn't have been able to stand the music even a few years ago. Now, for whatever reason, it touched me and seemed to be organically connected with the story. That probably says far more about me than about the music. And perhaps my enjoyment of the pace is, again, more about me than about the pace. It felt right to me. I didn't pay attention to time while I was watching, and was actually caught by surprise when it ended.

I'm glad we agree on Renner, if we don't agree on Adams. He's quickly become one of my favorite solid and always-deeper-than-expected male actors.

It was difficult to understand Whittaker; I had put it down to my failing ears, but perhaps the director should have asked him to slow down a bit.

[shanghaied]

Heh - yes, personal tastes, the filters of cumulative experience, and all the rest do indeed affect our perceptions of art (and everything else in life!). I occasionally go back to books or films I loved and/or thought brilliant when I was a prepubescent culture-inhaler, just to see what I make of them across a gap of years, and the results are varied; it's fascinating to find which ones have held up and which ones have dimmed in the harsh light of greater experience and sophistication :-)

'Solid' is a good description of Renner, and I enjoy him in everything I've yet seen, from action to art.

For the record, my ears are miles from failing (despite my long years in front of Everything on Eleven, my being sixtysomething, and my losing most of my hearing in one ear from a schooldays injury, I can still hear ultrasonics clearly), so I'd put the blame on the director, the sound recordists, or Whittaker himself.

Speaking of Mr Whittaker, I fully expect to find him tolerable in Rogue One, which we're going to see tomorrow night. I'm getting shivery just thinking about it, since it feels - from the trailers we've seen - like the first genuine Star wars film since the end of the original trilogy. Or to be completely honest, since 1977 :-)