André Benjamin on the set
filming on the set
Director Claire Denis
Director Claire Denis with actress Juliette Binoche
HIGH LIFE C
USA Great
Britain France Germany
Poland (110 mi) 2018 d:
Claire Denis
At 99 percent of the
speed of light, the entire sky converged before our eyes. 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.
―Monte (Robert Pattinson)
While ostensibly a sci-fi flick, this has more in common
with prison movies, showing how easily one loses track of time when serving
lengthy prison sentences, with much of your psychological vantage point reduced
to flashback sequences, as there’s nothing in the present to keep one occupied
or focused, nothing to do except except what’s required, so any contemplative
moments shift to earlier times when you had a life, when opportunities
presented themselves. You may have
screwed them up, but you had a life that was your own. However, that’s all in the past, as now you’re
stuck in a state of paralysis serving time.
French filmmaker Claire
Denis views space travel in much the same way, even constructing a story
that imagines a crew containing death row inmates, locked up in a box floating
in outer space. Conceiving a space
vessel that literally looks like a box, or an enlarged storage chamber, feels
rather mundane, where the hallways are cluttered and messy, feeling
disorganized, where prison life is no more flattering in outer space than on
earth, with the same dire results. Not
really resembling any other outer space movie, you’ll be hard pressed to
discover any references here, as there are few, as most of the film spends time
with the human cargo contained inside, and it’s not a pretty sight. No likeable characters here, as these are
literally floating criminals in the sky, as wretched out there as they were
viewed back on earth, each with their own self-centered motives, where little
thought is paid to the others. Actually
it’s an utterly unfascinating premise, poorly written, using next to no special
effects, operating on a shoestring budget, becoming more of a character study
of an insideous few, with Denis using an elliptical style that has worked well
for her in the past, particularly in a challenging film like The
Intruder (L’intrus) (2004) which has no coherent narrative, yet she
uses music and landscapes to expand the regions of consciousness, where
manifestations of one’s imagination alter and replace existing realities,
literally infusing the present with the past, real or imagined, creating a
sumptuously beautiful work that may be among her best. But this goes in the other direction,
restricting time and space, condensing it all into smaller more compact pieces,
then doling out little snippets at a time, where her tendency to intentionally
withhold information from viewers actually helps send this film off the rails,
as there’s little to no audience involvement, nothing to care about, which
includes the coldly inferior video look of the film. Essentially what’s happening onscreen is an
exhausting journey with few signs of hope, where time ceases to matter after a
while, with little incentive to go on.
Life in this kind of imprisoned endurance marathon is a life sentence
with no chance at parole, where you’re essentially counting time before you
die. Making matters worse, you are
hurling into the void of dark space, with no means of escape, and few if any
options. Not a pretty picture.
Arguably the director’s only misfire, as she may be the
greatest female director in history, yet this film has been gestating in her
mind over the past 15 years, where each of the different characters were born,
holding a greater meaning to her, perhaps, as they are her own creations, yet
many of the precious details are lost, largely due to the impersonal
indifference, which is suffocating, choking out all signs of life in the
process. Her first film spoken in
English, which is the language she imagines would be spoken in outer space
(”Definitely not French.”), what piqued her interest was how those spending
prolonged time in space stations were so regimented in their use of time,
leaving little to chance, spending each of their days painstakingly performing
their meticulously detailed experiments and lab tests, where everything is
documented, entered into the computer for analysis, spitting out charts measuring
whatever the hell it is they measure up there, as it’s essentially a science
lab. This is the overall tone conveyed
at the outset, almost entirely told in flashback mode, as Monte (Robert
Patterson) and a newborn baby are the last of the survivors, seen jettisoning
the remains of each and every last one of them out into the void of space in an
eerie spectacle (cueing the title), which only begins to account for just how
lonely and isolated his life has become.
Moving backwards to earlier times, the back stories are presented, where
we learn these are death row inmates given a chance to reduce or commute their
sentences in what appears to be a suicide mission, a search for alternative
fuel, heading towards a black hole where their mission is to try to extract
energy, following the premise set out by British physicist Roger Penrose. While there are people running the ship, they
are nearly indistinguishable from the inmates, given the ambiguity of the
narrative, as there is another evolving storyline that is more accentuated,
with Juliette Binoche playing Dr. Debs, a mad scientist in a white smock with
sinister motives, a veritable Nurse Ratched from ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S
NEST (1975), though here she collects semen from the male prisoners in exchange
for sleeping pills, while keeping the women onboard heavily sedated, using them
as guinea pigs, implanting the semen into their sleeping bodies, hoping to
procreate new life in space. Like
something out of BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR (1972), an early porn flick where a
randomly abducted woman is subjected to a series of sexual titillations meant
to arouse and inflame her desires, they have concocted a sex room known as “The
Fuck Box” where Dr. Debs spends quality alone time in simulated sex, like
riding a dildo bareback on a mechanical bull, filled with ecstatic gyrations,
which basically serves as the gym for a sexually demanding workout. Men supposedly use this facility as well,
though Monte is the one inmate, known as “The Monk,” who refuses to offer his
semen or use the sex room, preferring abstinence.
Once viewers get the gist of things, things quickly start to
deteriorate, minds frazzle, people misbehave in astonishing fashion, some
turning against one another, becoming a free-for-all of eroding
expectations. Space can only simulate
the experience on earth, where one room is dedicated to growing an overflowing
garden, used for food and vegetation, where a combination of various chemicals
produces mist and humidity, offering a kind of Edenesque experience, reminding
some of what it was like back on earth where they still have family, but no
contact. While there is a lone captain
onboard, Lars Eidinger as Chandra, he never once feels in charge, suffering a radiation stroke as they near the
black hole, leaving the dubious Dr. Debs in charge, though she has a deranged
criminal history as well, having murdered her husband and child, where this is
essentially a mental ward where the inmates start to run the asylum. Debs becomes obsessed with the idea of
creating a child (“I am totally devoted to reproduction”), though one senses it
feels more like a Frankenstein
creation due to the morally dubious methods used, which incudes a rape sequence
of a heavily sedated Monte in her quest for the perfect sperm. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this unorthodox
method produces a perfectly healthy baby girl, who is initially kept in an
incubator away from the mother, with Debs euphoric over her handywork, but this
sensation is juxtaposed over a gruesome image of the young mother covered in
milk-like fluids, a grotesque display of biology gone wrong, where
micro-managing the natural order of things, playing God, essentially, has
consequences, where this group is flirting with disaster. Things take a turn for the worse, plunging
headlong into space horror territory, with one ill-fated calamity leading to
another, with catastrophic results, where one by one the crew diminishes in
size, leaving only Monte and the baby named Willow, who grows up to become his
beautiful teenaged daughter (Jessie Ross), where they are literally stranded in
space. They provide differing
psychological mindsets, as all she knows is a life in space, learning about
family through computer imagery, endlessly going through the ship files, while
Monte is worn out from his experiences, battle weary, struggling to provide a
sense of meaning, even as his sense of purpose diminishes, as it feels all for
naught, a philosophical burden that grows heavier and more pressing each
passing day, still stuck to a regimented daily existence, while Willow has
fewer imposed barriers, less negativity, and is more open to exploring new
frontiers. It’s an interesting dynamic,
essentially survivers in a battle of attrition, even making contact with
another space craft that is identical in every respect, just a different
number. What they discover is frightful,
even worse conditions than their own, heading back out into the void of the
unknown, continually approaching oblivion, where all they’re left with is
essentially nothing to live for, yet they have each other. It’s a sad and profoundly tragic fate.
