Temporality, Reproduction and the Not-Yet in Denis Villeneuve's Arrival

Abstract

The prolepsis in Denis Villeneuve's Arrival emphasises the cyclical nature of the film's narrative and anchors human reproduction as a central theme. Pregnancy, the pregnant body, and the physical, experiential nature of birth, commonly heavily gendered in film, are misleading focal points in the narrative. The presence of the unborn as a subtext in the film problematises Iris Marion Young's (2005) notion of pregnant embodiment as a subjective lived-body experience. The viewer is encouraged to empathise with the complexity of birth, life, and death as part of Louise's lived-body experience, but is finally confronted with the uncertainty of maternity, pregnancy and the unborn. When Barbara Duden (1992) calls the unborn foetus a “not-yet”, she describes the process by which the foetus achieves a legal status, and the precarious nature of ascribing life or personhood. The prolepsis, which punctuates the main narrative, emphasises the reversibility and irreversibility of life that does “not-yet” exist. Importantly, the constant hovering over the threshold of life in the film complicates the timeline of reproduction. At the end of the film's narrative, the main character Louise Banks (Amy Adams), is “not-yet” pregnant, is “not-yet” a parent, and has “not-yet” lost a child. The temporal shifts in the film rely on repositioning or reorienting both Louise and the viewer to the “not-yet” reproductive body and the “not-yet” child. By presenting events out of chronological time and returning to the time before and after a child is born, the film ultimately raises crucial questions about the ethics of reproduction, the quality of life, and issues of consent.

Adapting Complex Time: Story of Your Life (1998) and Arrival (2016)

“…Both Anne Carruthers and Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski raise the motif of Louise's daughter, Hannah, as a key contributor to developing an understanding of the text's experimental chronology. In a feminist reading which finds its analysis closely linked with cognitive attitudes, Carruthers argues for the theme of pregnant embodiment with the exploration of a "not-yet" child and "not-yet" mother, highlighting the importance of an audience's belief that both child and mother have already existed as such (and Louise has now lost her child) at the beginning of the text in order to fully appreciate the emotional responses triggered by the text (Carruthers 2018). Carruthers claims that such an understanding is crucial, as it underpins the overarching theme of determinism 2 .…”

– The European Conference on Arts & Humanities 2020: Official Conference Proceedings

“…Both Anne Carruthers and Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski raise the motif of Louise's daughter, Hannah, as a key contribution to developing an understanding of the text's experimental chronology. In a feminist reading which finds its analysis closely linked with cognitive attitudes, Carruthers argues for the theme of pregnant embodiment with the exploration of a "not-yet" child and "not-yet" mother, highlighting the importance of an audience's belief that both child and mother have already existed as such (and Louise has now lost her child) at the beginning of the text in order to fully appreciate the emotional responses triggered by the text (Carruthers 2018). Carruthers claims that such an understanding is crucial, as it underpins the overarching theme of determinism 2 .…”

Für andere sprechen: Die Politik der Übersetzung in The Interpreter (2005) und Arrival (2016)

“…Insofern diese Techniken Medien inkludieren, sieht die Menschheit sich mit einer Gleichzeitigkeit immersiver Präsenz-und symbolischer Repräsentationsmedien konfrontiert, denen auf politischer Ebene die Konkurrenz zwischen Formen und Ansprüchen deskriptiver und symbolischer Repräsentation entspricht. Wie Pollack, so inszeniert auch Villeneuve die weibliche Figur als dazu befähigt, symbolische Gräben zu überwinden -und lässt sie gerade dadurch zu einem Medium des Noch-Nicht, des "Not-Yet" (Carruthers 2018) werden, das die temporale Verschiebung, die jeder Repräsentation zugrunde liegt, und somit die Notwendigkeit von Nicht-Identität sowohl für die Kommunikation als auch für die Politik im Bewusstsein hält. Im Kern der Filme steht mithin keine Utopie der Identität, sondern der Versuch einer Rettung des Symbolischen, durch welche auch die deskriptiven Repräsentant*innen anderer Nationen und Kulturen -seien es jene des Films oder jene der Politik -als stets immer auch symbolische Repräsentant*innen und mithin als Personen vorgestellt werden, die nicht mit den Staaten oder Gruppen, für die sie eintreten, identisch sind (Abb.…”