High Life: Entering the Void, High-Strung and Horny
The spaceship has a garden. Somewhere, amid the instrument panels and the spartan bunks and the anti-gravity suits, there is a verdant room full of plants, moss, and dirt. It’s as if the astronauts, saddened by the prospect of leaving Earth behind, insisted on bringing a bit of earth along with them.
This contrast—between the personal and the fantastical, between presence and absence, between flowering life and merciless death—is emblematic of High Life, Claire Denis’ strange, frustrating, beguiling new film. Part sci-fi thriller, part philosophical meditation, it is always challenging, often boring, and occasionally mesmerizing. Read More