High Life

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. 

Hidden Figures

Katherine Coleman Johnson

Dorothy Vaughan

Mary Jackson

Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson (L-R)

HIDDEN FIGURES              B-                   

USA  (127 mi)  2016  ‘Scope  d:  Theodore Melfi                 Official site

We all get there together or we don’t get there at all.

—Al Harrison (Kevin Costner)

While the film is a unique blend of space and race, with progress coming on both fronts, Melfi’s Disneyized direction couldn’t be more safe, conventional, and comfortably mainstream, where you couldn’t possibly make a less confrontational Civil Rights movie, as it’s more about capturing the look of the era, with stunned expressions on the faces of conservative white men forced to work alongside black women in flowery outfits, wearing the required heels, and of course, the glasses, where it’s the kind of film that intentionally makes white people comfortable while watching a period of ugly history that seemingly slipped under their doorstep one night and was somehow different the next morning.  Fairly easy to digest 50 years after the fact, often using humor to make a point, such as making a running joke out of Katherine (Taraji P. Henson), the only black person in the room of white physicists, having to run a half mile in her heels, carrying a pile of notebooks in her arms that she’s ordered to review, actually checking the work of the smug white professionals, in search of the only “colored” bathroom on the premises, a sequence absurdly repeated several times, once in a downpour of rain, which leads to the scene of the film when her clueless boss (Kevin Costner) wonders why she disappears for long stretches of time, as she unloads all her pent-up frustrations in a single outburst, a hair-raising scene to be sure.  Still, with protest marches seen off in the distance, or viewed at home on television, the film is exquisitely civil, even while being uncivil, as Kristen Dunst, always addressed as Mrs. Mitchell, plays the white supervisor of Dorothy (Octavia Spencer), who in turn is always called by her first name, and couldn’t be more polite each time Mitchell denies her request to be promoted to the vacant supervisory position, a job she’s already performing, as she is in charge of a pool of female workers but receives no additional pay.  Again, using humor, Dorothy gets back at being denied access to the needed books in the “white” section of the library by simply stealing the book, explaining to her shocked daughter, “I pay my taxes for this library just like everybody else!”  Janelle Monáe, shockingly good, as she was in Moonlight (2016), plays a sophisticated but brash-mouthed Mary, who has taken all the courses and compiled the needed knowledge to be recognized as an engineer, but she is denied the position, as the State of Virginia doesn’t recognize one of the required courses, as she took the “colored” class, as she was excluded from taking the “white” class.  Having to go the extra mile to earn the same worth is the predominate theme of the film, simultaneously combining the plight of women and minorities, which is just as relevant today, where conveniently they all achieve what they were originally denied.  But the special bond between the three women makes this a sisterhood is powerful movie, and while the performances are strong, some of the charisma is achieved (especially from Mary) by utilizing contemporary attitides and language in a completely different historical era, where it’s easy to slide into sassy-mouthed black caricatures, once again feeding into the typical Hollywood stereotypes.  

Like most Hollywood dramas, there is an element of exaggeration and overkill in the historical narrative that would be better served without the supposed Hollywood hype, which accentuates filtered light entertainment, often at the expense of enlightenment and historical accuracy.  Adapting Margot Lee Shetterly’s recent book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, the book focuses on young black women who spent their entire careers working at NASA, including Katherine Goble Johnson, a genius mathematician who enrolled in high school when she was ten, becoming a college graduate by 18, which is particularly impressive because this achievement came during an era when a significant number of blacks quit school after 8th grade, eventually becoming a NASA section chief who calculated the trajectory for the moon landing, as well as the Shepard and Glenn flights, also Mary Jackson, one of the first black women to become an engineer, and Dorothy Vaughan, a mathematician who was the first black manager at NASA.  Beginning in 1935, NASA’s predecessor, NACA, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, women were considered “computers,” as they were female mathematicians who literally computed the numbers before the introduction of electronic computers into the space program.  When FDR signed an executive order in 1941 desegregating the defense industry, this paved the way for a new generation of black female mathematicians to work in the space industry, recruiting black women as temporary workers in support of an all-male flight research team.  Shetterly’s father was a 40-year veteran of the Langley Research Center, the oldest of NASA’s field centers located in Hampton, Virginia, who used to tell her stories about the black female “computers” who created an uproar in the department, as the men couldn’t believe women were capable of such rigorous mathematical calculations, yet many of the women who were hired held master’s degrees, which is all the more remarkable because this happened in the Jim Crow era when blacks went to substandard schools and were barred from the more challenging books in the “white” libraries.  While this film rightly honors their storied achievements, with NASA naming a building in her honor at Langley in May 2016, the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility (NASA Facility Dedicated to Mathematician Katherine Johnson), coming on the 55th anniversary of the first American spaceflight by astronaut Alan Shepard, whose suborbital trajectory Johnson calculated during her time working at Langley, and President Obama awarding Johnson the Medal of Freedom in 2015, the highest civilian honor, it does so with a formulaic, heartwarming Hollywood style that is the textbook definition of a feel-good movie. 

As Shetterly points out in her book, “In the 1930’s, just over a hundred women worked as professional mathematicians…(where) Employers openly discriminated against Irish and Jewish women with math degrees.  The odds of a black woman encountering work in the field hovered near zero.”  In contrast, the Soviet Union openly encouraged women to pursue engineering careers, which helped them get a leg up on America during the Space Race of the 50’s and 60’s, launching the first Sputnik satellite on October 1957, and the first man (Yuri Gagarin) to complete an orbit of the Earth on April 1961.  What the films shows is that the black female mathematicians were stymied by outdated social regulations, where men and women worked separately, while blacks could only work in the “colored” section, as the section for whites remained off limits, relegated to “colored” rest rooms and drinking fountains.  When two of the black women exhibited skills enough to be brought over to work first of all with white men at NASA, they were not only the only women, but as the lone blacks, they were not allowed to drink out of the same cups or coffee container, and had to make a half mile trip to use the “colored” rest room.  Today this seems like ancient history, but as the superb Ken Burns documentary Jackie Robinson  (2016) points out, Robinson, the first black player in major league baseball, took the hateful insults, racial slurs, death threats and abuse and made it just a little bit easier for the next person of color to become the “first” or second in their school or workplace.  What this film suggests is that even a decade later, it still took a great deal of time and personal frustration, as progress is slow in coming, as it was a time when women got little credit for their work and weren’t allowed to co-author reports, instead they had to work anonymously in large groups, as none were allowed to be singled out for their excellence.  It should also be pointed out that the United States had a track record of failures in their unmanned Atlas space launch attempts, with one ending in a spectacular fireball with the capsule still attached.  This was not exactly a confidence booster for the original Mercury Seven astronauts announced by NASA on October 7, 1958, yet it’s staggering to consider the progress made in just three years to project Alan Shepard into space in May 1961, while a year later John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth in February 1962.  While Americans may remember the room of men in white shirts and crewcuts lining the room at Mission Control in Houston, manning their computers, communicating with the astronauts in mid-flight, where many viewed them as the best and brightest in the nation, little was made of those behind the scenes working dutifully at the research facilities, challenging the antiquated perception of mathematicians as only white males, where this film finally gives them their due.