High Life (18.)
Directed by Claire Denis.
Starring Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin, Mia Goth, Lars Eidinger, Agata Buzek. 113 mins.
A shonky assemblage of wannabe Tarkovsky sci-fi metaphysics done on a Blake 7 budget, High Life finds Robert Pattinson floating across the universe with only a baby daughter for company. He cuts an understandably pensive figure: he might just be the only human male left in the whole universe and he's traversing deep space in what looks like a brown cardboard box.
High Life has an appealing opening scene: Pattinson is outside in his space suit doing some repairs while the baby watches him on the monitor in her playpen. For a few minutes the film has your interest perked, but not for long: Denis' latest is a fierce piece of anti-narrative. Fair enough, I can live without a story but you could at least make the place look nice. The visuals pick up a little in the last hour but everything looks so cheap and half-hearted. It's difficult to believe that they are in a vehicle that is maintaining an atmosphere and protecting them from the vacuum of outer space when it looks like any one of them could put their foot through a wall at any moment.
The cast list is a giveaway that flashbacks will be involved and these present us with a set of convicts who have all been persuaded to go on a mission beyond the solar system and be the subject of the sexual experiments of mad scientist Binoche. Wikipedia has a plot synopsis that offers a very plausible explanation of what happens but very little of it would occur to you while watching it. This slow, elliptical narrative approach is not much different from those used in her previous films and those were often magical experiences. Here though, this inscrutability feels like a calculated slur; a back turned shunning.
The ship's ultimate destination is a black hole, the place in the universe where time starts to bend and stretch, but the film way ahead of it on that score. I'd sneak a look at my watch and refuse to believe that it could only be ten minutes since the last look.
Directed by Claire Denis.
Starring Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin, Mia Goth, Lars Eidinger, Agata Buzek. 113 mins.
A shonky assemblage of wannabe Tarkovsky sci-fi metaphysics done on a Blake 7 budget, High Life finds Robert Pattinson floating across the universe with only a baby daughter for company. He cuts an understandably pensive figure: he might just be the only human male left in the whole universe and he's traversing deep space in what looks like a brown cardboard box.
High Life has an appealing opening scene: Pattinson is outside in his space suit doing some repairs while the baby watches him on the monitor in her playpen. For a few minutes the film has your interest perked, but not for long: Denis' latest is a fierce piece of anti-narrative. Fair enough, I can live without a story but you could at least make the place look nice. The visuals pick up a little in the last hour but everything looks so cheap and half-hearted. It's difficult to believe that they are in a vehicle that is maintaining an atmosphere and protecting them from the vacuum of outer space when it looks like any one of them could put their foot through a wall at any moment.
The cast list is a giveaway that flashbacks will be involved and these present us with a set of convicts who have all been persuaded to go on a mission beyond the solar system and be the subject of the sexual experiments of mad scientist Binoche. Wikipedia has a plot synopsis that offers a very plausible explanation of what happens but very little of it would occur to you while watching it. This slow, elliptical narrative approach is not much different from those used in her previous films and those were often magical experiences. Here though, this inscrutability feels like a calculated slur; a back turned shunning.
The ship's ultimate destination is a black hole, the place in the universe where time starts to bend and stretch, but the film way ahead of it on that score. I'd sneak a look at my watch and refuse to believe that it could only be ten minutes since the last look.
