Extremely long-term anticipation thread for Claire Denis, Zadie Smith and Olafur Eliasson's Sci-Fi film, High Life

I Love Claire Denis. I couldn't be more excited. Especially about Eliasson's involvement.

http://youtu.be/4tNJMU63h7s

http://www.forbes.com/sites/monikabartyzel/2015/06/29/claire-denis-and-zadie-smith-head-to-space/

I like olafur eliasson

I love this

http://www.dezeen.com/2014/08/19/olafur-eliasson-louisiana-museum-of-modern-art-denmark-giant-landscape-rocks-riverbed/

Stars Robert Pattinson :-(

Trailer is A+ though.

nothing wrong with pattinson

this movie is going to be wild, isn't it?

Eliasson's Weather Project at Tate Modern was prob the best installation piece I've ever seen

this movie is going to be wild, isn't it?

― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, October 15, 2015 8:19 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It could end up as some wild disaster/success along the lines of Pola X but I'd be ok with that.

I need to watch that again.

Hell, I'd watch Beau Travail set in the Starship Troopers universe.

not sure they don't already share a universe tbh

Stars Robert Pattinson :-(

no real feelings about him either way, but credit where it's due, he seems p serious about leaving Hollywood behind (directors post-Twilight: Cronenberg x2, Herzog, Corbijn, the Safdies, Korine, James Gray and uh Brady Corbet)

I can imagine Denis will make him interesting. He's such a strange man to look at. He looks handsome in still photos and bizarre on screen.

I haven't liked a film of her since 35 Rhums, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

White Material was a dull miss for me, never saw Bastards. Trouble Every Day and Beau Travail are all-timers tho, and The Intruder is one of the more pleasantly confounding movies I've seen

L'Intrus is probably my second favourite of hers. It's baffling in a very interesting way. Bastards was good in a similar but lesser way. I didn't like The White Material.

I'd have to re watch it to confirm completely but iirc there is one white person in the whole of 35 Rhums.

Actually that makes it sound like I didn't like Bastards very much but I'd rank it with her best. I can't really deal with Trouble Every Day, it's so depressing.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7j9iSbz0qc

This scene though. And the thought of the woman who made this making a sci-fi is very exciting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7j9iSbz0qc

Still like Chocolat most. Kinda fell in love with the actress Cécile Ducasse on first viewing, and that scene where Protée grabs the generator exhaust is all-time.

Oops, meant Giulia Boschi (who plays the mom in the late 50s).

an ecstatic review:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/sep/10/high-life-review-robert-pattinson-claire-denis-sci-fi-drama-astronauts

(i hate the title High Life)

With an achievement of this calibre it’s hard to resist hyperbole: High Life contains the single greatest one-person sex scene in the history of cinema.

JIZZ

IN

SPAAAAAACE

Apparently about 1/4 of the audience walked out. Lots of "worst movie ever" tweets. Obviously, I'm stoked.

My buddy at Toronto said it was terrific. Naturally, I responded, "So it left a bitter taste in the mouth."

JIZZ

IN

SPAAAAAACE

This is funny.

wondering if i can justify going to paris in nov just to see this

will be seeing at NYFF in about 3 weeks

"astronauts who switch their attention from black holes to sex"

(your joke here)

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/sep/10/high-life-review-robert-pattinson-claire-denis-sci-fi-drama-astronauts

The first sentence of David Ehrlich's review:

In many respects, the mesmerizing and elusive “High Life” is a first for writer-director Claire Denis: the first of her films to be shot in English, the first of her films to be set in space, and the first of her films to follow Juliette Binoche inside a metal chamber that’s referred to as “The Fuckbox,” where the world’s finest actress — playing a mad scientist aboard an intergalactic prison ship on a one-way trip to Earth’s nearest black hole — straddles a giant dildo chair and violently masturbates in a scene that’s endowed with the tortured energy of a Cirque du Soleil routine.

sure it's not playing at LFF but at least we'll be able to see *checks notes*... Life Itself?

plz do spoiler warnings, Sotosyn!

As was once said of James Bond, "I think he's attempting re-entry."

heh. maybe she secretly made a sequel to Moonraker.

so far this sounds like the best movie ever made by anyone

(i hate the title High Life)

Perhaps they can switch titles w/the smokin' new Alex Ross Perry joint?

omg

fwiw, this wasn't written by Zadie Smith in the end

What we do know is that the English dialogue is not, as was reported, written by Zadie Smith and Nick Laird; Denis didn’t see eye to eye with them. “We don’t have the same philosophy of life.”

i am also seeing Her Smell (right after the Orson Welles joint).

did tindersticks do the soundtrack?

music by Stuart Staples!

I'd forgotten that André Benjamin is in this. And Victor Banerjee of A Passage to India!

for Toronto folks, there's a one-off screening next Thursday evening (the 28th) to tie in with the Denis retro

May the 10th is the UK release date.

saw the trailer yesterday during Gloria Bell.

could a mod add HIGH LIFE to the thread title for easy future discovery?

I liked this a lot, though I heard at least one fellow moviegoer decry it as "awful," which tracks with its chilly reception at TIFF. Much less graphic than I was led to believe - IIRC Trouble Every Day was considerably moreso. Sort of a halfway point between Event Horizon and Solaris, if that's possible. Great baby acting.

*sipping out of my TIFF water bottle*

sounds good, Simon!

something I've learned over the years is that the average TIFF gala audience is barely a half-step above the audiences who rate movies for CinemaScore.

I've never been to one of their events, but the HQ or whatever was a nice space to see a movie

Sort of a halfway point between Event Horizon and Solaris

at last, the movie for me

somehow I've read hype for this elsewhere and didn't connect it to what I'd read previously on this thread and I'm kind of doubly-excited now

I disliked it; kept from hate only bcz half of the laughs seem to be intentional.

"The Fuckbox" is not a spoiler.

their first films for Assayas and Denis, if it's not clear.

I'm almost sad that Pattinson is going to be in the new Nolan opus, he made so many Twilight fans sit through so much arthouse fare over the last few years in an unbroken streak

High Life isn’t her first film in English, at least half of Trouble Every Day is too

Oh, come on. TED was, iirc, broadly marketed, produced, and consumed as a French feature -- to the extent that it got swept up in that whole New French Extreme horror wave of the period.

ok but what does that have to do with Denis making a movie in English

"he made so many Twilight fans sit through so much arthouse fare over the last few years in an unbroken streak"

This is good not bad.

I agree!!!

He sounded like he was speaking a different take on English in Cosmopolis, but that was just DeLillo dialogue that made it intact from book to script

When I asked Claire Denis why the bodies in space fall "down" even though there's no gravity she said, "you don't have an engine in your ass!" https://t.co/IiaK9yI8lz

— Cameron Scheetz (@cameronscheetz) April 22, 2019

I have no idea what this means but it's hilarious

should've been the tagline

There was a line about the ship constantly accelerating to create the illusion of gravity but this film was never about accurate physics. I don't have an engine in my ass.

A good film imo.

I sorta figured maybe the idea was they were close enough in proximity to a black hole at the time that it might be pulling them down. But clearly I overthought things.

Loved this conversation: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/movies/claire-denis-barry-jenkins.html

JIZZ

IN

SPAAAAAACE

IN SPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU COME.

So "dystopian" is barely adequate to describe this world. I had thought Let The Sunshine In slight and unworthy of Denis and Binoche. (The only other Denis film I had seen was 35 Rhums.) Unquestionably both women have considerable depths.

As for the interview on the train, I'll accept it as a window into what people on Earth (civilians and insiders) know about Ship 7 (and presumably other ships in the program). I know throughout I was wondering about 1) the technology that could create that vessel and 2) the political setting that would allow prisoners to "volunteer" for this mission, and let Binoche conduct her "research" program. Any institution review board worthy of the name would recoil from what we see here.

I saw High Life a few weeks ago in NY at the Angelika, it's been on my mind ever since

I had a hard time not comparing this to 2001, my above-every-other-film favorite, but it had so many beautiful scenes I felt like it came within shouting distance

the score by Stuart Staples was great I thought

Having not seen the film yet, I just read a review and is this film really about convicts in space with a dildo in a box?!?

the body horror in this film was something

xp there's some other stuff but more or less yea

I was surprised when someone that works at the one theater showing this here that there have been a notable number of pissed walkouts & refunds, mostly older people obviously

oscar voters, no doubt

they should give em passes to An Elephant Sitting Still

that there have been a notable number of pissed walkouts & refunds, mostly older people obviously

oh i'm absolutely dreading showing this, believe me.

these people got pissed about gloria bell.

why is this a surprise, flappy? I was the only one at my screening ("And you might be the last one," the ticket person said).

It didn't seem that graphic to me, and one would think - or hope - that MOR art house audiences could go with some weird sex shit

it's not reactions to the sex i'm dreading (tho someone did try and get their money back from me for the favourite lol). it's people saying the following: "that was COMPLETELY POINTLESS!"

haven't seen the movie; haven't read that much about it; just get the distinct vibe that it's gonna be COMPLETELY POINTLESS

will report tho

Saw the trailer last night, can't wait

There were walkouts at my relatively full showing during the attempted rape scene which then made me feel especially self-conscious sitting there in the dark watching it.

so long as you stayed dressed

what is zadie smiths involvement in this?

she left over "creative differences"

https://www.indiewire.com/2018/10/high-life-claire-denis-zadie-smith-left-robert-pattinson-1202009125/

nice

there were a couple of insanely bad scenes in this (j binoche in the sex box...rofl ) but overall it was pretty and fun to think about

my mom who i saw it with kept asking ‘why don’t they have [consensual] sex?’ not sure if it was ever explicitly addressed but id assumed jb was drugging them. felt ~meaningful that she was both the one who bore most guilt/committed the worst crime and was also most invested in the scientific mission

lmao

Denis also noted that Smith was intent on having the film’s central characters return to Earth after being tricked into joining an ill-fated space mission. “Nothing against her, but she wanted the people of the ship to — she wanted them to return to Earth,” the filmmaker said. “‘Going home,’ she kept telling me. I said, ‘What the fuck do you mean, going home?’ There is no one alive there, you know?”

lol, also it's hard to judge in retrospect but I think High Life is a much better and more memorable title than A New Life

“She was beautiful and half from the Caribbean, and I thought yes! I was impressed by that.”

She’s from Willesden

they are equally terrible.

I liked this a lot. Very strange and creepy rhythm to the whole thing. Binoche looks demonic skulking about the ship while everyone else is passed out. The ending was quite beautiful.

it's not reactions to the sex i'm dreading ... it's people saying the following: "that was COMPLETELY POINTLESS!"

called this wrong: not nearly as many walkouts as the beach bum and the ones we did get were over the sex after all. lobby vibe afterwards was more "...huh" than exasperated

i liked it more as it went along but did fight sleep for a few stretches. however i was delighted from the beginning by the loving use of code page 437 (or something v like it) for the computer interfaces: my kind of retro

also loved binoche's hair

Finally got around to this now that its on amazon prime, thought it was ok but had a very hard time not switching it off during juliette binoche's scene in the dildo box, one of the silliest sex scenes this side of The Room

Technically impressive--the sound design is excellent, and I love the junkiness of their vessel, particularly in the exterior shots--but I fidgeted through much of the running time and ultimately didn't get a whole lot out of it. The fuckbox was just Clooney's dildo bicycle thing from Burn After Reading, only not meant to be funny.

Yea this was a letdown even though Pattinson was good

I’ve missed some of his more acclaimed work of recent years (Cosmopolis, Good Time) but this is definitely his best performance that I’ve seen.

"you don't have an engine in your ass!"

Haha, I love that. I also loved this film.