After reading
Shaun Tan’s visual novel “The Arrival”, one could say that this piece of work
was one of the most conceptional masterpieces in history. This novel brings the
viewer into the work and story. It gives the viewer/reader a state of mind of
being in the story. It is like the viewer is looking inside what is going on in
the story and personally experiencing what the characters are going through.
Some might even imply that the viewer may even become the character. The
concept visual literature work in The Arrival shows how to tell a story
effectively without using motion or dialogue. The viewer can bring together
what is going on as far as the situations, current events, and character
relationship through the visual imagery. Each illustration was effective and
symbolic towards the story. Within each image the viewer could tell and fell
what was going on through the powerful detail. As a filmmaker, at first, I was
going through this story as if the images were storyboards. The images to me
were set up like shots in a film, but these were a little more detailed then
your average storyboards. These images were like frames within a film, which
were what created the story. I felt as if I was watching a silent film through
the illustrations.
As for the story itself, I think that it
was effective and had a lot of concepts. I could tell that the characters were
in danger from the beginning of the story. The family moving away from the
dangerous city and trying to get away from what appeared to be a monster showed
me the protagonist and antagonist parts of the story. I could also visual tell
what the characters goals where. This story also came with the elements of the
hero’s journey which causes the protagonist to leave the threshold and go out
to adventure the world to seize the reward and become a new person. There was
the mentor, which were the man and child in the middle of the story.
Overall, I think
that this piece opened many doors for not only visual literatures such as comics,
but films, written novels, and animation.
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