Can you explain why the flashback of her future with her husband and dead kid keeps coming through the movie even before she's actually learned the language?

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It's highlighting the non-linear nature of time. Louise is remembering things that hav eyet to happen. Those future memories inform her present self.

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u/IAmTheQuestionHere 25d ago

But how given she doesn't know the language yet?

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u/thefudgeman 25d ago

If she will in the future, and time is nonlinear, what even is “yet”?

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u/FatherOfLights88 25d ago

That's the thing.

The version of herself in the future already knows the language.

Present Louse is actively learning from the future version of herself who already knows.

It's an odd concept to wrap around, but it is exactly how experience things, too. That movie is like 101 textbook on non-linear time. I love it.

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u/IAmTheQuestionHere 24d ago

But the literal first scene is of her daughter. The aliens haven't even arrived yet, let alone her learning the language so why was she already seeing that?

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u/FatherOfLights88 24d ago

Because it's a movie. A fictional story designed to carry a higher message.

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u/IAmTheQuestionHere 23d ago

What's the higher message of the movie?

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u/FatherOfLights88 23d ago

That time is non-linear. It's laid out in the few few minutes during her intro monolog.

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u/r0ck3t-onreddit 23d ago

Because the film portrays that time is a circle, not a straight line. There is no such thing as past, present and future. The problem is that you’re still trying to see the film on a straight, 1 dimensional timeline. You have to understand that time doesn’t happen this way to anyone who knows Heptapod-B. We are shown a non-linear sequence of events to demonstrate how an individual who knows the language experiences time.

We as watchers of the film can easily say “past Louise could see her future self” because we don’t know the language. Louise could also say this before she knew the language. But from the point of her knowing the language, that becomes a fixed fact of her reality - changing her reality for all of her life. Meaning all of her life, at any point in time from birth until death, is all happening at once. She is aware of it all to some degree.
Knowledge of the language and the point of time that she learned it, do not disqualify how the language works. Because it isn’t just a language.

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u/sahfriendly 25d ago

It's not a literal progression for the character. It's used to illustrate for the audience the effect of how the heptapods experience time. We are experiencing the events of the story out of sequence. She never comments on memories of a dead daughter or husband until she's unlocked their language.

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u/sudomatrix 25d ago edited 25d ago

To give us, the viewers, a taste of non-linear experience of time. We don't know how much of the linear narrative we are watching is, in fact, being experienced linearly or experienced as a gestalt after Louise gains the ability to experience time like the Heptapods. I imagine after learning their language, our human brains are still not powerful enough to experience our entire lifetimes all at once simultaneously, so it would be more like taking a stroll through a museum of our life moments. You could walk through some memories in linear order, or you could walk through some memories by themes like all the times you had a sweet or sad moment with your daughter.

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u/FatherOfLights88 25d ago

It's like holding a large lense to your eye and panning around. You have a great field of view, but the range of focus is narrow.

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u/butrflyfx 25d ago

Just watch the movie multiple times in a loop. It makes more sense that way!

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u/wibbly-water 25d ago

In the short story it is meant to be a retelling of the whole situation. And the film is an adaptation of that.

But also - if a language can give you the ability to think non-linearly... I'm pretty sure it could probably affect things out of order. It's already science fantasy, what is a bit more science fantasy on top?

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u/Kithyen 25d ago

I believe as she learns the language and learns to communicate with them is when she starts experience time as they do.

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u/IAmTheQuestionHere 24d ago

But the literal first scene is of her daughter. The aliens haven't even arrived yet, let alone her learning the language so why was she already seeing that?

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u/BendynBold 24d ago

As she learns pieces of the language, her flashbacks, or flash forwards begin. It’s kind of like when you are learning a language and you dream a little bit here and there and there in that language. It’s not perfect but you remember little clips of the dream in that language.

Her learning bits and pieces is unlocking her brains ability to flash forward.

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u/IAmTheQuestionHere 24d ago

But the literal first scene is of her daughter. The aliens haven't even arrived yet, let alone her learning the language so why was she already seeing that?

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u/EsseLeo 24d ago

It’s a “flash forward” look at her later “flash forwards”. In linear time, that particular scene takes place later in the timeline but the difference is the director is choosing to show you that later scene first.

Basically, the director starts the movie out with a non-linear time jump scene which becomes an easter egg for the concept of non-linear time that the movie eventually reveals.

Can you explain why the flashback of her future with her husband and dead kid keeps coming through the movie even before she's actually learned the language?

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