So bold, so courageous, so brave, for Miyazaki to come back and lay himself open, make himself vulnerable, and give us this.
I only just left the theater.
I admit, at times, in between, I was scared and wondering, has Miyazaki finally promised on more than he can deliver? I shouldn't have — a masterpiece where every single moment is full of confidence, assuredness, inventiveness and, ultimately, poetry.
"Are you dreaming?"
The final words spoken in Hong Sang-soo's understated and criminally overlooked motion picture imbue his creation with a final sense of mystery. These words, in particular, have truly stuck with me.
They seem to infuse the previous scenes with even more beauty: In dreams, it feels like, we can reach a heightened sense of reality, more beautiful, more fantastical, more aspirational.
There's something about the question this quiet master leaves us with that makes the previous radiant…
What if you could see your whole life as an image, as a story told in one absolute and timeless form? Would you change it?
Rarely, if ever, has a movie preached about the importance to embrace life's beauty, despite the knowledge of tragedies sure to come, than in Villeneuve's 'Arrival'. A powerful film parable about communication, grief, and imagination, so masterfully crafted and thematically dense, I wouldn't possibly know where to begin.
