After watching Denis Villeneuve’s “Arrival,” it instantly became my favorite blockbuster. In my opinion, “Arrival” remains Villeneuve’s finest work because, in 2016, he still prioritized storytelling over mere visual spectacle.
The film is adapted from Ted Chiang’s acclaimed short story “Story of Your Life,” published in 1998. It opens with the protagonist, Louise Banks, speaking to her daughter in a poignant scene. However, as the narrative unfolds, we realize this is not a flashback but a vision of the future, marking the true beginning of the story.
This film stands as the most Nietzschean ever made, resonating deeply with Nietzsche’s philosophies of amor fati and eternal recurrence. Let’s look at these concepts further.
The Most Nietzschean Film Ever Made
Credit: Paramount Pictures
“So, Hannah… This is where your story begins. The day they departed. Despite knowing the journey… and where it leads… I embrace it. And I welcome every moment of it.“
Louise Banks
The sudden appearance of 12 spacecraft at various locations around the globe incites widespread panic. In response, the U.S. Army enlists Major Weber to recruit Ian Donnelly, an astrophysicist, and Louise Banks, a linguist, to establish communication with the extraterrestrial visitors. Together, Banks and Donnelly embark on an intensive research mission to decipher the aliens’ language.
The aliens experience time in a non-linear, cyclical manner. As Banks immerses herself in their language, she too begins to perceive time in this way. This concept echoes the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in linguistics, which posits that the language we speak influences our perception of reality.
As the film progresses, Banks’ newfound perception of time reveals her future: she will marry Donnelly, and they will have a daughter named Hannah, who will tragically succumb to cancer at the age of 12. Despite knowing what lies ahead, Banks chooses to embrace her future, marrying Donnelly and bringing Hannah into the world.
Amor Fati
Edward Munch 1906
Young Nietzsche, like Schopenhauer, believed that there is no God and that we do not possess immortal souls. He also accepted, as Schopenhauer did, that this life is full of suffering and devoid of meaning. However, as seen in his middle-period works, Nietzsche significantly distanced himself from Schopenhauer’s influence. He rejected the idea that we should turn our backs on this world with disgust and dismissed all forms of asceticism. Contrary to Schopenhauer’s advice, Nietzsche urged not only to endure fate but to love it. The first condition for reaching new heights is the love of fate:
“I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who makes things beautiful. Amor Fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all things and the whole someday I wish to be only a Yes-sayer!”
Gay Science §341
Affirmation
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“We’re so bounded by time, by its order. But now I am not so sure I believe in beginnings and endings. There are days that define your story beyond your life. Like the day they arrived.”
Louise Banks
According to Nietzsche, rejecting the randomness of life leads to ressentiment and, consequently, to corruption. A healthy life cannot be achieved through feelings of envy and revenge.
The corruption caused by ressentiment can only be healed through affirmation. Life must be affirmed in all its aspects, including destruction and suffering. Only such affirmation can put an end to millennia of decay and corruption, paving the way for healthy ways of living.
But how?
An individual is the result of a history. For a person to affirm their life, they must also affirm the history that has shaped them:
“I walk among man as among the fragments of the of the future; that future which I scan. And it is all my art and aim to compose into one and bring together what is now fragment and riddle and dreadful chance. And how could I endure to be a man, if man were not also poet and reader of riddles and the redeemer of chance! To redeem the past and to transform every ‘It was’ into an ‘I wanted it thus!’—that alone would I call redemption.”
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Of Redemption
Throughout the film, we witness Banks’ process of affirming her own life. She embraces every moment of a life where Donnelly will leave her and their daughter Hannah will die of cancer.
Eternal Recurrence
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“If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?”
Louise Banks
The highest form of amor fati, or love of fate, is the affirmation of eternal recurrence. Nietzsche introduces his readers to the concept of eternal recurrence with the following question in The Gay Science:
“The heaviest weight—What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumberable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unterrably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!’ Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.’ If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, ‘Do you desire this once more and innummerable times more?’ would lie upon your actions as the greates weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?”
The Gay Science §341
The aliens in “Arrival,” much like Nietzsche’s demon, compel Banks to make a choice. She must decide whether to say yes to life in its entirety or be crushed under the weight of existence. By the film’s end, we see Banks embracing life and transforming into something akin to Nietzsche’s Übermensch. Despite all the suffering it contains, Banks desires neither more nor less than her own life.
In essence, “Arrival” is not just a science fiction film about extraterrestrial contact; it is a philosophical exploration of fate, choice, and the human condition. It challenges viewers to consider their own lives and the histories that have shaped them, urging an acceptance and love of fate that can lead to personal transformation and growth.
