High Life

 

High Life 2018

• Director: Claire Denis
• Seen by the director: Chocolat (not the one with Binoche, the other one)
• Based on book: no
• Cast: Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin, Mia Goth, Agata Buzek, Lars Eidinger, Claire Tran, Ewan Mitchell, Gloria Obianyo, Jessie Ross
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Robert Pattinson - Queen of the Desert, Twilight, Remember Me, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Juliette Binoche – Dan in Real Life, Breaking and Entering, Paris je t’aime, Caché, Chocolat, The English Patient, Rouge, Blanc, Bleu, Wuthering Heights, Les amants du Pont-Neuf
• André Benjamin – Battle in Seattle, Be Cool
• Mia Goth - Wallander
• Claire Tran – Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
• Why? Sci fi
• Seen: 6 December 2020      

       A man and a baby on a spaceship plagued by malfunction. Who are they? What are they doing there? Where is everyone else? What happened?

       Slowly the story emerges. It was a ship populated by hardened young criminal on a mission beyond the solar system to approach a black hole and harvest energy. One of the criminals, Dibs (Binoche), who murdered her children and husband, has another mission, to force her fellow passengers to produce foetuses and living healthy babies. Only one baby survives. The father is Monte (Pattinson).

       It’s a surreal psychological and sociological study of losers from a future dying Earth confined on a dying spaceship surrounded by a lethal universe on a very long and very slow suicide mission with no possibility for success. The film is strange, at times violent and perverse. It’s very slow and often unpleasant.

       I can’t see the point, possibly there is none although she made the film for a reason I assume. And in fact, it’s fascinating and beautifully filmed and the actors give strong performances.      

3 * of 5 (Hal says 4)