Spoilers.
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jchapter — 9 years ago(November 21, 2016 03:29 PM)
And you've never read a book of fiction before?! I appreciate that you're commenting on here but you need to read more fiction before you comment on a sci-fi movie to that depth. Wow. I think you may be telling porkies.
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aznxscorpion517 — 9 years ago(November 21, 2016 11:27 AM)
There is an explanation for her seeing visions before learning the language. IIRC The first words spoken in the movie is narration from Louise. The entire movie that we see is past tense. She's just remember/telling it to the audience so it doesn't break the narrative. That is how it is in the short story too. All the alien stuff is past tense and narration/stuff about daughter is present tense.
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doorclosed321 — 9 years ago(November 21, 2016 11:37 AM)
Yes you are right. I just check the book and the tenses do change. So basically that means what? This whole is basically her telling her daughter the story before she dies or something?
Thanks either way -
aznxscorpion517 — 9 years ago(November 21, 2016 03:04 PM)
In the short story she is basically telling her daughter about the life she will live (and Louise's own experiences with her). Anything about the aliens is her remembering how she gained the ability to do that in the first place. This is all recollection on Louise's part. By the end we realize the entire story was just her thoughts mere moments before she decides to "make love" to her husband and conceive Hannah. If I remember correctly that is how the short story goes. The movie feels like they were trying to do that as well but it wasn't as clear. Probably because we see and hear dialogue in the flash forwards instead of narration like the short story, which would have clued us in with past tense and present tense words.
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Stev-2 — 9 years ago(November 22, 2016 02:33 AM)
Anything about the aliens is her remembering how she gained the ability to do that in the first place. This is all recollection on Louise's part. By the end we realize the entire story was just her thoughts mere moments before she decides to "make love" to her husband and conceive Hannah.
Hmm. I haven't read the short story, but based on your description, I feel the movie tried to invert that. That is, the 'present' of the movie was the regular action and events on screen most of the time - primarily the events in Montana. These were the exact days the aliens were here (including arriving and leaving); from her turning up to work (arrival day) to the last shot of the film when she's hugging Ian still at the Montana base (leaving day).
Anything you see outside of that timeframe is a flash-forward vision caused as she is learning Heptapod, or the occasional memory. The opening and closing montages with v/o are a nod to what the book did, but I don't think the movie is trying to portray the events you see on screen as all about her remembering stuff. Could be wrong though. I'm watching again on Thursday, so will try to view with your theory in mind. -
Stev-2 — 9 years ago(November 22, 2016 01:23 AM)
why she was having visions of the future before she learned the Heptapod language, it's just further evidence that the writer just throws ideas together to make a cool narrative, without any attempt to ensure it makes sense.
I don't think that's fair in this case. You're right that happened in some of Lost, but I didn't see any evidence this movie threw out ideas just to be intriguing at the time without any idea at all how to pay them off later (which is what Lost did a lot).
In terms of the discussion around her visions of the future before she met the aliens, I'm pretty sure she didn't have any visions before learning at least a little Heptapod. I'm not sure about the opening montage with voice-over. Where that's taking place (so to speak) is not completely clear. Is it just part of the thoughts she's having at the end of the movie shown to us first? (The end of the movie being the day the aliens leave and her and Ian appear to get together.) Is it her thoughts at the end of her linear life, as some have suggested? But that sequence is clearly not party of the regular narrative.
That scene aside, once the regular movie starts with her going in to work, I'm pretty sure there are no flash forwards until she learns a bit of Heptapod. Albeit they push it a bit; she's learned very little when having her first 'non-linear visions'. -
Mali-27 — 9 years ago(November 22, 2016 02:10 AM)
Well if there's no good explanation
Ah of course there is.- It is mentioned (as an interesting theory) in film that you can reprogram your brain when you learn different language.
- It is mentioned that learning the alien's language enables the one to see a time as non-linear space (remember Interstellar? N.dG.Tyson said that is is entirely possible to perceive time like that, when you are not bound by human dimension)
- At one point, she learn that language.
That means, that at one time -linear to all others- she stopped seeing time as a one-directional flow. From that moment in history (as perceived by other humans) the order of events became non-linear for her, thus she was always, all the time, every-time:
- alive
- unborn
- pregnant
- married
- divorced
- single
- young
- old
- happy with child
- angry with child
- playing with child
- burying the child
- grieving from child's death
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LinkinSixEcho — 9 years ago(November 21, 2016 08:05 PM)
The movie also suggestsvia the test she devised for her colleaguethat she explores more than one interpretation ("we desire more cows"). Also, as she was introducing Portuguese to the classroom she mentions it "isn't like any other romance language because it was created as a way to express art." Her innate curiosity and ability to devise other meanings or interpret languages in ways other than mere communication (and her ability no doubt, to correlate the increasingly vivid strange flash-forwards with her increasing comprehension of the alien language) most probably led her brain to adapt a nonlinear approach to the alien language. Her early experiments in this possibility ("a zero-sum game") made it a probability, and from there her brain learned to adapt and accept.
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