Dr Sarah Dobbs will be giving a paper at the 'Great Writing Conference 2017', to be held at Imperial College, London. She will be exploring three key areas within the filmic representation
of Arrival (2016). One, how does the film's fictive space encourage
the consideration of the viewers' own motivations in concrete, everyday
reality? Two, how do some of the film’s key
conceits (such as translating a language and the idea that language may
construct identity; the decision to have a child with the knowledge
that they will die from a terminal illness) invite our questions about
our own perspectives and choices in various aspects
of our lives? Finally, if we allow this supposition to stand, how can we be aware of the implications of the constructions of our own fictional narratives and the real-world consequences of these?
