High Life-Review


"A father & daughter struggle to survive in deep space where they live in isolation."



Directed by: Claire Denis
Written by:  Claire Denis
                      Jean-Pol Fargeaux
                      Geoff Cox
Starring: Robert Pattonson
                 Juliette Binoche
                 André Benjamin 
                 Mia Goth
                 Agata Buzek
                 Lars Eidinger 
                 Claire Train
                 Ewan Ettore
                 Gloria Obianyo
                 Scarlett Lindsey
                 Jessie Ross


Claire Denis has proven herself to be a master filmmaker time and time again, whether it's been upending the horror genre with Trouble Every Day or eviscerating the romcom in last year's Let the Sun Shine In. Denis has an uncanny ability to take on any genre and master it immediately. That's why it shouldn't be such a surprise that with her first sci-fi, Denis once again leaves you wondering how this is only her first attempt. She meets the tropes of the genre with such efficiency that that alone would be enough to convince you that she's capable. But it's when she hurdles over or crashes through (sometimes both) those tropes that you're left in awe. High Life is a woman at the top of her craft and embarrassing her contemporaries all at once. We're lucky to live at the same time Claire Denis is making movies. 

High Life might sound like something you've seen before. A space station drifts listlessly through the cosmos as a lone survivor lives day-to-day after something has gone horrifically wrong. As the story cuts between the present and the past, we learn just what exactly caused our predicament. The ship is a science vessel filled with convicted criminals who have volunteered to become "heroes" for humanity. Their mission is to find black holes and harness their power to save a dying Earth. Unfortunately for them, human nature almost immediately comes into play. Couple that with the ship's doctor (a remarkably wild Juliette Binoche) who's hellbent in her obsession with procreation and you're in for a messy (literally and figuratively) journey.


What's immediately striking about High Life is its focus on bodily functions. Denis has always been fascinated with the human body and how it responds in dire situations, and her latest effort pushes that curiosity in some pretty interesting directions. From an extended scene of lactation with Mia Goth covered in her own breast milk to Juliette Binoche's Dibs running down the hallway with sperm cupped in her hands, this is a wet movie. The peak of this occurs in what's dubbed only as the ship's "Fuck Box" wherein passengers can "relieve" themselves. This leads to what might be one of cinema's greatest one-person sex scenes. It's something you've never seen before and likely never will again. 

Denis offers a refreshingly adult look at the moral loss that comes with human achievement when no one is there to tell you what you're doing is wrong. In "Space Mission Gone Bad" movies we generally see this sort of thing limited to killing, but Denis isn't interested in that. In her pursuit to understand human nature her findings are dizzyingly sexual and not always erotic. At one point during the nightmare trip, Robert Pattinson's Monte narrates, "The sensation of moving backwards even though we're moving forwards, getting further from what's getting nearer. Sometimes I just can't stand it". It hits you with so much immediacy and almost brought me to tears. These people are seeing wonders beyond their wildest imagination and none of it compares to the sensations of their primal urges to fuck, eat and kill. Denis shoots it all with a closeness that suggests a love for these people, warts and all. There's a claustrophobic nature to her camera that calls Kubrick to mind. But unlike Kubrick's "rats-in-a-maze" approach to his human characters, Denis intones a perverse warmth onto them. It makes it all the more tragic as each one hurtles towards death.  


The real triumph of it all is Robert Pattinson, who once again sheds his movie star persona into something more grounded and visceral. There's an ensemble of excellent actors in this but the film largely plays as a two-hander between Pattinson's Monte and his daughter Willow. His tenderness with his daughter, first as a baby and then a teen, is a sight to behold. In one expression, Pattinson's face becomes awash with both the love and exhaustion that any father feels towards a child. His relationship with Willow is the strong heart of the film.  In a place where things feel both heavy and weightless all at once, his undying love for her centers everything. Denis is showing the atrocities humans will commit when the madness of space takes hold while tying it to new life and the potential that it implies.

High Life is another triumph for Claire Denis, who at 73, shows no signs of slowing down. In a single outing she cements her piece as one of the most urgent and preeminent film in the sci-fi genre. Only Denis could give us such a passionate, warm film about a father and daughter surviving together in space and mix it with a cold, frightening morality play where anything can and will happen to the human body. High Life wants you to be uncomfortable but then turns itself back on you and asks you why you're uncomfortable. In an ever expanding galaxy with all of its weightlessness and endlessness, sometimes the only logical thing to do is grab someone and hold on. 

VERDICT:

10/10

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