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.