#and make it more surrealist and a story about a story cause thats what it was always supposed to be i feel

[vzajemnik]

ohhhhhh sticky note.........youll never be famous and thats ok❤️

[whatmakesafilm]

Electric Swan

Dir. Konstantina Kotzamani

Screenplay by Konstantina Kotzamani

On Avenida Libertador 2050, a building moves and the ceiling shivers, causing a strange nausea that devours its residents. Those who live on the top are afraid they'll fall, the ones who live beneath are afraid they'll drown.

Watched on 3rd June, 2020

What works:

Loved the dreamlike quality though it took me some time to get used to it. It had a weirdness to it which I wasn't thrilled about but didn't hate either.

Loved the opening scene, I think it set the mood for the movie very accurately. The ending circling back to the opening was a very good move.

The transition from the lake to the cleaning machine was also amazing.

The difference between the relationships between the doorman and the girls of different ages was also interesting. He adopts different roles for each of them.

Loved the shot of the teen girl wrapped in a blue shawl with the mother mary statue of the same colour by her side.

Those who live on the top are afraid they'll fall, the ones who live beneath are afraid they'll drown."

This is obviously a film about class distinction, but I think what sets it apart from other such films is how it deals with the intimate fear of each group. It doesn't trivialise the fear that those living on the top floor have. It's treated with the same seriousness as the fear of the others down the hierarchy. I loved this angle a lot, and I think thats what sets this movie apart.

What doesn't work:

While I love the aforementioned summary of the story, I'm disappointed that the film didn't dive into it more. Because the concept, on hearing it, is brilliant, but I think overall the film doesn't deliver on the promise made by that single sentence. There's so much left unexplored, so many parallels to draw which I think would make the film richer visually.

Did not like the transforming into swan bit. Liked it metaphorically, but not in the way it was done. While I understand, that the director wanted a surrealist quality to the film, I felt it could have been a tad more subtle.

The relationship with the little girl could have been explored a little more.

'the rich don't have real friends' trope was meh

The dog subplot, though sweet, didn't add to the story as much as it featured. And it was sort of predictable, to be honest.

Visual score: 7/10

Overall Score: 8/10

Concept score: 9/10

Social commentary score: 8/10

[mikeortiz2-blog]

arrival

In recent years, we’ve seen sci-fi movies used not only to examine the power of space travel or a post-apocalyptic future but as a way of addressing common humanity.  Arrival is a movie about grief, time, communication and compassion. Ultimately, it is a movie that makes us ask questions like: What is physical reality and what is just a dream? How do we approach that which terrifies us?  It also depicts the struggles and limits of communication, and how it is important to communicate through language and not just action.

Arrival tells the fictional story of Dr. Louise Banks, a linguist professor for a University. The world had just been invaded by 12 alien ships known as heptapods. We learn the Dr. Banks used to work for the government translating some messages from some captive terrorists, and because she still has top level intelligence clearence Colonel Weber seeks out her help in order to figure out what the Alien’s purpose on Earth is. During this month long period of going into the pods and trying to learn from them, Dr. Banks and fellow researcher Ian Donnelly start to realize that these heptapods are really not here to hurt us. We learn that heptapods were spread out through out the world, but with no known scatter order. They produced zero emissions and was virtually non disruptive to our environment. We learn that the heptapods can tell the future and they were here because they were going to need humanity’s help in three thousand years so they came to give us a weapon/tool. The tool was their language. Once we are able to learn their language, we would be able to understand time the way they do.

“Language is the foundation of civilization. It is the glue that holds a people together. It is the first weapon drawn in a conflict.” Arrival deals with the issue of having to communicate with a different species that has no known written or audible structure. Dr. Louise Banks explains to Colonel Weber that in order to learn this new language she has to be there in order to understand the language context to get a better understanding of its meaning. In a way, technology actually hinders the way we communicate. Technology, although great does not give us cues needed to understand a language. We all see that today with our text messaging most people find it very difficult to pick up on sarcasm in texting because it comes in the tone of voice.(This sketch from Key & Peele perfectly illustrates this idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naleynXS7yo) It is also very hard to pick up facial cues or environmental adaptations from an auditory file, which is why Louise explicitly explains that in order to decipher this new language she needs to be present. Hearing moans and growls played back on a recorder isn’t enough. She tells the colonel as he leaves her office to go find a new linguist to ask them the Sanskrit word for war and its direct translation. The other linguist translates it as an argument while she translates as “a desire for more cows”. This idea plays a big role in the movie because it explains that a single word can be understood differently and with separate meanings. Louise begins  her quest to crack this alien code by starting with basic vocabulary. Basic Vocabulary is the basis of learning any language, before the researchers are able to begin to even speak to the aliens they need to know if  aliens can understand basic sentence structure, prepositions or even pronouns. That is also why Louise started off with the word human and her name next, they were very easy to illustrate. Once the researchers understood how they communicate then they are able to begin to learn how to respond. “Their writing is semasiographic, it conveys meaning but it does not represent sound. Their written language is in linear orthography, meaning that their language has no forward or backwards order. Heptapods can write a complex sentence in two seconds effortlessly” After many days spent translating the new language and teaching the Heptapods English and vocabulary, she is finally comfortable enough to ask them the question the Colonel Weber had been hoping for “ what is your purpose?” The response is “give weapon” this response was given by most of the heptapods around the world and caused mass chaos. Here is where the translation the Sanskrit word for war makes a full circle. As many people would believe weapon can be defined like destruction or something deadly and causing injury, but a weapon is also a tool. Dr. Louise is the only researcher to catch on that the word weapon might be translated by them to mean the world tool. Words can take on different meanings and different translations. For example have you ever taken song lyrics from a song in a foreign language and put them into google translate, most of the time what comes out does not make sense at all. Thats the same with heptapod glyphs. Miscommunication is common with translations. That is why necessary context within a given translation is very important.

Reality is defined as the state or quality of having existence or substance. Physical reality reality that is there, you can touch it, it has a physicality to it. One would think that since dreams are all in your head you would be able to tell the difference between reality and a dream, but what about when dreams are so realistic that you can not tell the difference. That was one of the big themes in Arrival. Dr Louise Banks kept getting visions of this child. This was happening around the same time as trying to decipher the heptapods semasiographs, so it was covered up by the thought that it may just be from a lack of sleep. As an audience we were introduced to Dr. Louise’s child in the beginning of the story, so upon her first interaction with this dream sequence we can assume that she is having flashbacks of this child that she lost to cancer in the opening scene. It is not till later that we find out that this is actually a vision into the future, not just a flashback. But the question is still there, in our daily lives how can we tell difference between when something is real (physical reality) and when something is just a dream, especially when the dreams are just too real?  Well one of the biggest factors is that you can wake from dreams, but you can not wake up from reality. But what happens to that reality you see in a dream? Because when you wake up thats it, its not like you can go back to that same dream reality in your next dream. According to the Huffington post article entitled Are dreams an Extension of Physical Reality  , “We also dismiss dreams as unreal because they’re associated with brain activity during sleep.” The article also points out that most of the time after we awake from a dream that we usually don’t remember what happened in that dream. Dreams can be realistic, but most of time within a dream, you are not fully aware of your conscious, if there is a physical reality you can touch and feel and you are fully aware of your consciousness, it is real. René Descartes said it best, “I think, therefore I am”.

At the end of Arrival we learn that the flash backs that Dr Louise Banks was having were visions of her future. Along with their written language, seeing into the future was another gifts that the invaders bestowed to her. She see a happy future for herself, married, has a child, famous book author, but she is also faced with a dilemma. In the beginning of the movie, we learn that her daughter ends up dying from leukemia in her teenage years. This is the same daughter she is having future glimpses of through out the movie that is way we assume they are flashbacks. We also learn the the reason her and her husband break up is because she tells him that their daughter was going to die and he wasn’t ready to hear it. These glimpses into the future bring up a good point, “if you knew you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change anything?” The moral dilemma is if you knew that you were going to have a daughter and you knew that she was going to lose this long battle with leukemia would you still continue down this path. The contradicting argument is if you can see the future then can you really avoid going down a certain path. One would believe that is inevitable, so why even try to change it the future. We can not change what the future already has in store for us we can only embrace it. Dr Louise Banks’ final words put it best “ despite knowing the journey… and where it leads… I embrace it… and I welcome every minute of it.” Everything happens for a reason.

Arrival is a surrealistic movie that gives us a great look into the importance of communication and language, and how technology, even though great, can provide its own challenges within communication. It also helps as grasp the fact that physical reality and dreams can play a big role in how we make our decisions. Finally, this movie teaches us that even if we knew what our future holds for, good or bad, it is unavoidable, so we might as well make the most out of life.