Since my post will largely ignore this fact, I want to say that Arrival is one of my favourite movies I have seen all year. It was visually stunning, thematically thought provoking, and, at any rate, I am a sucker for stories about first contact with extraterrestrial life.

One of the key features of the film ‘Arrival’ is its “non-linear” narrative. There are multiple points where Louise is observing events in the future or past that influence the direction the narrative goes. The opening scene takes place well after the climax of the movie, for instance. Thus, we are invited, as the audience, to see the story unfold in a sequence that goes against the standard flow of time. However, I am not convinced that this counts as non-linear in a a deep fashion, because as I consider this, it seems to me that the concept of “narrative” itself depends on a form of linearity.

Since I’ve argued this point with other Rose Scholars already, and there digressed to some more radical definitions, I’ll stay conservative here. Narrative, as I’m considering it, is simply a story. Thus Arrival is a narrative. As we watch Arrival, the director has chosen a sequence in which to present the scenes. We observe the scenes as they play out in front of us. This is the sense in which I think Arrival is truly linear – within the universe of the narrative, the characters experience things atemporally, but within the viewer’s conception of the narrative, it plays out in a sequential, linear order.

Since I don’t exactly have a proof that ALL narrative is linear, I’ll consider two classical examples of non-linear narratives in an attempt to drive my point home further. The first is ‘Pulp Fiction’, which, similarly to Arrival, displays scenes in an order which is not the order that the characters experience them. For example, the final scene of the movie takes place immediately after the first, despite multiple days of story taking place in between. However, just as Arrival, there is a linear order to the scenes as presented, so the narrative, as experienced by the viewer is linear. The second is ‘Primer’, as story about two guys who invent time travel and find that using it gives them power that destroys their lives. It’s difficult to say whether or not the scenes as presented to the viewer are out of order with respect to the perspective of the characters in the movie – the plot is deliciously convoluted. But, again, the narrative as experienced by the viewer moves in a specific sequence chosen by the director. This may seem like a trivial point, but I’m fixated on it for a particular reason; it means that, no matter how hard we may try, we will always experience narrative linearly. A story told will be heard in the order it is told, and to me this suggests something fundamental about stories. Perhaps fundamental about our perception of time itself. Though Arrival, of course, would argue that this perception can be contested.

For those interested in exploring some atemporal philosophy, Book XI of Confessions by St. Augustine is something I read for a class this week and is related to a number of the temporal themes of arrival, particularly our conception of time. Jake Januzelli pointed this out to me originally.
http://pm.nlx.com/xtf/view?docId=augustine_iii/augustine_iii.01.xml;chunk.id=div.aug.confessions.137;toc.depth=1;toc.id=div.aug.confessions.137;brand=default