High Life

bnt

The new film from Clare Denis start Robert Pattinson, André Benjamin (Outkast), and others as a group of "low lifes" sent on a space mission, watched over by a doctor played by Juliette Binoche. The mission seems to be partly about harvesting energy from a black hole, partly to investigate human reproduction in space, and partly a social experiment to see just what happens when unstable people are forced to live side by side in a dangerous environment ... :eek:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIgkXuNsWT4

Sad Professor

New trailer:

No word of a UK/Irish release that i can find.

pixelburp

Looks suitably mental & intriguing in equal measure...

Fair play to Pattinson for carving out a tidy career, much removed from his Twilight days. He seems to pick some unique, singular projects from film to film.

safetyboy

Is this showing anywhere in Dublin I cant see any listings.

Lionbacker

safetyboy wrote: »

Is this showing anywhere in Dublin I cant see any listings.

Out on the 10th of May by all accounts, so you have to wait a while yet.

johnny_ultimate

Mesmerising stuff. Off the top of my head I'm struggling to think of the English-language debut of a major international director that felt so uncompromising. This is pure Claire Denis: strange, brutal, provocative and enigmatic. Reminded me of Bastards quite a bit, albeit with heavy lashings of Solaris.

At its most basic, you can see it as a sort of bleak subversion of the sci-fi thriller: a spaceship full of people, slowly dying in the vastness of space (no spoiler: the high body count is bluntly revealed during a magnificently eerie title card). But whereas you usually have some force or killer picking off the crew members, this one's all about relationships and humanity in the most hopeless of circumstances. Pattinson's character repeats the word 'taboo' in one of the film's early scenes - and this is kind of about how societal norms are knocked down as this box drifts through the void. This is as much an offbeat examination of prison and mass incarceration as it is a sci-fi movie. There’s a loneliness to proceedings even when there are other people around. And - unsurprisingly for Denis - the film avoids easy moralising.

Denis pulls few punches here: it's grimly violent, full of weird sex (all about that ****box scene) and taboo-pushing. It's superbly crafted, with the kitschy set design proving a perfect match for this ever odd vision of the future. Some tremendous editing, especially in the often baffling first half hour, and the few moments of actual sci-fi spectacle are stunning (the

black hole

scenes being both beautiful and horrifying).

The top review for this on Letterboxd simply states "Semen-terstellar", and I'm still laughing at that. But the film's great.

Shelga

Too bleak for me. Just the relentless nothingness of space, with a crew of horrible people. I didn't necessarily think it was terrible, but I thought it focused too much on the horrible stuff

graphic and violent rape scenes

and nothing given to the elevated bonding that surely would result in at least a couple of the people in that situation.

I'd give it 2 or 3 out of 5. Interesting but grim, and a sense that it was all pointless and leading to nowhere

could you even call the ending ambiguous though? Surely they would be dead within seconds

Also it really bothered me that

the teenage Willow had a different accent to the dad! Would have been such an easy thing to get right.

Mizu_Ger

Not sure what to make of this film.

As a commentary on what people get up when confined together or society's taboos I don't think it works. The group of people are pulled from the dregs of society, so they were always going to be in conflict. The only normal character was André Benjamin's but he doesn't play a big part.

Burying him in the vegetable garden didn't seem like a good idea either!!

The sfx didn't seem particularly good to me (except the black hole images), but this didn't bother me. It was probably down to the low budget. The black hole design looked very similar to Interstellar.

The ending:

going off to their deaths in the shuttle didn't bother me as much as the relationship between Monte and his daughter. Seemed a bit "off".

Whatever my thoughts on the film, I was certainly thinking about it for a while afterwards, which is a good thing!

Outlaw Pete

Garbage............ but very artistic garbage so it will have its fans, sadly.

cdgalwegian

High Life

Sounds like this should be given a wide berth;

IMDb:
User Reviews

Characters so emotionally dead it should have been a zombie movie;

Typical European film made for critics not those looking for something to enjoy. Why are so many European films so emotionally dead? The sex here is dead as well if not twisted. No reason to see this if you are fan of sci-fi. The sci-fi elements are just a way to show the characters' alienation from reality.

RTs

Critics Consensus

High Life is as visually arresting as it is challenging, confounding, and ultimately rewarding - which is to say it's everything film fans expect from director Claire Denis.
83% TOMATOMETER, but 47% Audience Score

Lionbacker

I actually loved this film. Certainly not many like it & the non-linear storyline in which it is told actually adds to it.
Granted, you'd be disappointed if you were looking forward to an action packed sci-fi. But for what it is, I left very satisfied.

cdgalwegian

Lionbacker wrote: »

I actually loved this film. Certainly not many like it & the non-linear storyline in which it is told actually adds to it.
Granted, you'd be disappointed if you were looking forward to an action packed sci-fi. But for what it is, I left very satisfied.

As the best sci-fi really paints the human condition on a diffferent type of canvas, rather than revolving around the science fiction itself, I'll give it a go so.
Non-linear is a dodgy style, but can be very effective- in the right hands.

cdgalwegian

As the best sci-fi is really an alternative means to reflect the human condition, this is certainly a film to test this. I liked almost all of the elements, but this was really Existentialism in Space, which should give a flavour of how drawn out it was. There's a lot to think about here, but that's the point- it comes across as a thought experiment that would have been much more appealing as a short film, with a commentary on the underlying philosophy.