The most chilling line in the new movie Arrival is: "We have a protocol for this."
This would be the descent of 12 massive alien spacecraft from outer space, transgressing what is known about the physics of time, space, and gravity.
In the film, from director Denis Villeneuve and screenwriter Eric Heisserer, US Army Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) recruits academic linguist Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams), because the aliens have landed, but no one has any idea what they're saying. As an academic, Dr. Banks' speciality is decoding the undecipherable, so she's taken, under cover of night, to the nearest alien landing location, inoculated and stuffed into a hazmat suit.
Also en route is mathematician and scientist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner). The ensuing gender conflict and left-brain/right-brain misunderstanding make for some witty, thought-provoking and spark-driven plot-driving mechanisms. But how did the filmmakers set out to illustrate decoding the spooky vocalizations and written hieroglyphics of the alien heptapods?
Villeneuve and his production team called in Jessica Coon, Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at McGill University and Canada Research Chair in Syntax and Indigenous Languages. Much of Coon's research is centered on the Mayan language, Ch'ol and Mi'gmaq, a First Nations language of Quebec. After the recent press screening, we spoke to her via phone at her office at McGill University.
Ted Chiang, who wrote the short story on which Arrival is based, "had clearly done his linguistics homework," Coon told PCMag. "But the production team wanted to talk to someone who had done fieldwork, because they wanted to properly represent the process. Let's face it, linguists don't often make it to the big screen."
Coon was asked to provide feedback on early drafts of the screenplay. Then the production design team stopped by to watch her work. "They came here to McGill and took photos of my office, examined the bookshelves, the kind of bag I carry, gathering authentic details to show Louise Banks's life," she said. "I also had lunch with Amy Adams at a fancy hotel in Montreal, so she could ask me questions. It was very glamorous having lunch with a movie star, the black SUV pulled up and there she was."
The filmmakers also took notes as Coon explained the nuts and bolts of fieldwork. "I was taken to the set, and into one of the military tents and they said, 'Your job is to translate an alien language. You have a team of 15 military cryptographers—tell us what happens next.'"
"The thing is, as someone who studies human language, I have a head start, because languages tend to conform to a pattern with underlying principles, and we can make pretty educated guesses about the abstract properties of a new [to us] language," she said. "But if, as in Arrival, you're dealing with a non-human language, it's entirely different matter. Having said that, I'd do what we always do out in the field—establish a relationship, a rapport—just like Louise Banks does in the movie."
In fact it's that scene, where Banks removes the face guard on her hazmat suit so the aliens can see her eyes and mouth movements, that grabs your attention. She's taking a huge risk. Yet that brave connection starts the dialog with the outer space creatures really rolling.
So, back to the chilling line about protocol: Unlike other sci-fi movies, Arrival has nothing to do with space. The alien civilization in this scenario decided to come here. Which means—just in case you were wondering how this would play out in the US—the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) would take control, working alongside representatives from every government agency.
If nothing else, Arrival, out today, gets your brain firing on many levels.